


Unsung

by wheel_of_fish



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:45:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 105,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_of_fish/pseuds/wheel_of_fish
Summary: Christine Daaé has spent eight months imagining what she might say to the Opera Ghost if she ever saw him again. Now he is here in her flat, quite by accident, and the fact of the matter is she can no longer speak.





	1. Eight Months Later

She walked onstage with the terror and resignation of one condemned to die.

It was almost laughable, really, how much she had to pretend otherwise. She was decked in flounces of peach-pink satin and black lace, her every movement coquettish and overwrought, but it was her first line that was most offensive: _No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy_. Oh, how that could not be farther from the truth.

The truth was that she felt alone and abandoned amid that sea of spectators: a chirping sparrow, left unguarded to bait the hawk. With every second she spent cavorting about the set, she also scanned the auditorium for a white half-mask, stilled her hands from shaking, and tried not to vomit. She could barely focus on her stage partner, Piangi, as he made his re-entry under the cover of a hooded black cloak. He was a blur in the corner of her eye as she sat and let him sing to her the words of seduction that _he_ , her masked pursuer, had written.

Broad, sinuous hands, masculine but expressive, hovered tantalizingly about her face and neck. From there, callused fingers skated down the bare expanse of skin at her sternum, over the soft swell of flesh at the neckline of her bodice, and down even further to her corseted stomach.

And then she knew.

Only one man would act with such poised bravado. Only _he_ would emit the current of raw desire that she felt in that caress. And only _he_ was capable of instilling cold, solid dread in her gut while at the same time setting her skin and blood aflame. He, her fallen angel.

The realization transformed them from Don Juan and Aminta to predator and prey. She leapt away from him, every nerve ending in her body crying out _danger_ as she struggled to regain composure and continue the duet.

But beneath all of that, she felt a thrill. A terrible, shameful, sickening thrill.

It was a testament to his genius and to his voice that he had so perfectly emulated Piangi's vocals; she had carried on with the scene like a fool, too caught up in baiting him to notice that he was already there. But his skill did not stop at that. No, he had engineered the perfect duet to draw out her most hidden, forbidden desires and air them in front of her—until, in this moment, she could no longer deny their existence. Past the point of no return.

There on stage, in front of her fiancé and seemingly all of Paris high society, her voice expressed what her body could not, even as she racked her brain for an exit strategy. Her voice betrayed her, and though it may have seemed part of the act, she knew that _he_ had noticed. He knew her voice better than even she did.

As their voices melded for the song's finale, entwining in a beautiful but too-intimate coupling, he began to reel her in. Her body and soul complied, terrified and powerless to resist.

The spell faltered just long enough for her gaze to flit to her fiancé, where he waited in the wings. Raoul watched them with such open revulsion that her stomach seemed to bottom out entirely. Was his disgust directed solely at the Phantom, or did he _know_?

Her guilt and shame became too much to bear, and so she did a horrible, cowardly thing: she transferred those feelings to _him_. And she would never forget his pained expression of betrayal as she removed his hood—and then, ultimately, his mask.

She ought to have known that a public unmasking would utterly unhinge him. The Opera Ghost roared and grabbed her wrist, and her world exploded in a wall of fire.

* * *

Christine woke with a gasp, fingers clawing at the bedsheets. She lay there, panting, until her mind cleared itself of its fog, and then she finally turned to read the small clock at her bedside: a quarter to five. She had fifteen minutes to dress and get to work.

She was up in an instant, splashing cold water onto her face at the washbasin as she tried to erase the scene that had just played itself out in her head. Again.

_He_ still haunted her slumber. Many of her nightmares were marked by blood and fire and garrotting wire and chandeliers, and she would wake shaking and in a cold sweat.

In other dreams, she was forced to recall the initial tenderness of his touch, the rigid line of his body as he held her to him and sang soft promises of music that would transcend all else. He had still been her angel at that point—or had he? She must have already suspected by then that he was a man, for it would have been blasphemous to harbor for an angel as much longing as she had felt that night.

But the worst dreams of all were the ones like tonight's, dreams that reminded her of how some part of her, deep down, had always yearned for him. How she had kissed him twice. Even now, nearly eight months later, her dreams would not let her forget. Guilt and shame still stretched and loomed over her, an unrelenting shadow.

She slipped out of her nightdress, shivering all the while, and put on the garments she'd worn the day before: navy skirt and bodice, white blouse, stockings in need of mending. Then she took a brush to her tangled brown curls, frowning at her reflection in the mirror as she did so. When had her cheeks become so hollow, her skin so lifeless and gray? Even her blue irises seemed to have dulled, perhaps an effect of the puffy lower lids and dark undereye circles.

It was a hard blow to take after everything else that had befallen her this year. She would never admit it aloud, but she had always taken some comfort in her appearance, had always been aware of the allure held by her lithe dancer's body and delicate frame, her shining mahogany hair. It was hard not to be, not after she had endured the stares and murmurs of the lecherous old opera subscribers, with their black hats and wandering hands and unfettered access to the ballet dancers' rehearsal spaces. As much as those men had made her stomach churn, she had to admit that she had fed off of their flattery at a time when praise of her abilities had run short.

She still had her hair, at least. But that hardly mattered now, not as she twisted it into a neat bun and tied a white kerchief around her head.

From the coat stand by the door of her flat, Christine grabbed her favorite blue cloak, dull and weathered with overuse. A red scarf hung on the neighboring peg, and she paused to rub the soft wool between her fingers.

Oh, Raoul.

What was he doing now? Sleeping, no doubt, having retired not long ago from one of his late-night dinner parties with friends. He had tried to include her in them during the four months in which he'd put her up in a large and gorgeous room in his large and gorgeous house, though she had often preferred to sleep. She could recall his grey eyes shining merrily with camaraderie and drink and, when they caught sight of her, with utter devotion.

That was, of course, before he had suggested calling off the engagement.

Oh, how she had loved him—and perhaps she did still. But it had not been enough.

And _he_ , her fallen angel, the Phantom—he had loved _her_ , and it had also not been enough.

But then, she had hardly known the side of him that had set her free on a kiss, given up his happiness for hers, and confessed his love knowing full well that she was to leave. _Who was that man?_ Oh, that lonely, desperate man! He had been so careful not to reveal himself to her, she knew now. She had spent many nights fuming about it, incensed over his treatment of her; his manipulation of everyone in that opera house; and his wicked, unforgivable deeds. And she had spent even more nights convincing herself that hers was not anger born of hurt and betrayal, because then that would mean that she had cared.

She had, though. Of course she had. And it would have been easy to drive herself mad wondering what might have been had he shown her his true self from the beginning, but she had finally come to accept that she would never know.

Now, no one in that strange love triangle was happy. Raoul still had a chance, though, and that provided some cold comfort.

A more unsettling thought occurred to her: that perhaps, at this moment, her love did not sleep alone. After all, four months was plenty of time in which to find another bride, and interest was in no short supply for a vicomte.

With renewed haste, she pulled the scarf down and tucked it away in a dresser drawer. Then she hurried out into the hall and down the four flights of rickety stairs that would lead her out into the street.

It was still dark outside; the damp pavement shone with reflections of the overhead street lamps. She raised the hood of her cloak to guard against the cold October drizzle, wishing she had thought to bring gloves. There was no time to go back upstairs.

Though the upper class had just turned down their sheets, working-class Paris was stirring, breathing life into the rain-slicked streets and sidewalks. Christine was nearly knocked over by a slew of men ferrying sacks of flour from a horse-drawn cart to an alley door. The smell of baking bread wafted out of the building and made her stomach rumble, reminding her that she had not eaten. She paused and glanced at the open bakery door; perhaps they would let her slip in and buy a morsel? But no, she did not have the time.

She tightened the blue cloak around her shoulders, and that was when she saw it: a subtle shift beyond the door, what appeared to be a sweep of a black cloak in the dark alleyway. She froze, her eyes fixed on that spot, but all was still.

_No_ , she told herself. _You are being irrational, Christine._ It was likely a trick of the light or the wind. Even if it had been a garment, it could have belonged to anyone.

No one, however, wore a cloak with the combination of stealth and sweeping grandeur that _he_ had. The movement she had seen, that smooth billowing of fabric that seemed little more than a passing shadow: it had reminded her of _him_.

She shook her head and moved on. The Phantom of the Opera was long gone, possibly even dead, and she had to believe that if he had been watching her of late, he would not have tolerated her toiling away as a laundress these last four months. She was not even sure how _she_ had tolerated it.

Besides, it would not take him long to figure out why she had left the Opera Populaire. If that happened, then she was certain that he would want nothing to do with her.

She was the last of eight women to arrive at the laundry that morning. The coal stove had already been stoked, the irons laid out on top in preparation for the day's work. Someone had brewed a pot of weak coffee, and she eagerly poured herself a cup, letting the chipped porcelain thaw her fingers as she drank.

The clock chimed five before she could finish. The head washerwoman tossed her a dingy white apron and barked, "Enough dawdling, girl. Start sorting."

Christine tied the apron strings around her waist and joined several others at the large sorting table, where they counted, marked, and sorted the soiled clothes and linens that had come in the night before. Meanwhile, other girls collected the garments that had dried overnight and set to ironing them. The room, as always, became oppressively hot, cutting off idle chatter until the only sound was the dull _thunk_ of the irons. It was not long before Christine stripped down to the short-sleeved blouse beneath her bodice.

The adjoining room, to which she rotated next, merely swapped the suffocating heat of the irons for the suffocating humidity of the washtubs. She scrubbed and rinsed long after her fingers puckered, knowing that her hands tonight would be papery and bone-dry, her knuckles cracking until they bled.

There was a meager lunch prepared in the sorting and ironing room, and then the women began to haul bins of wet laundry out to the courtyard behind the building. The rain had let up, giving way to meek sunlight, so they could take advantage of the outdoor clotheslines.

Christine took deep breaths as she pinned damp garments to the lines. The stench of the city air was just as odious as that of the dirt and sweat inside the laundry, but she no longer felt as though she was breathing into a hot, wet blanket.

"Hey, sweetheart!" called a man nearby, and only when he said it again did she realize that he was addressing her. "Sweetheart!"

She looked up. The speaker was a stout, square-jawed man in a blood-spattered apron, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he leaned against the rear door of a neighboring butcher shop. She had seen him before; the men working nearby often chose this hour to take their smoke breaks. Usually, though, they focused their attention on those laundresses who were reputed to go topless when the heat of the laundry became unbearable.

Christine could not say what caused her to meet this man's gaze, but she regretted it instantly. Even as she turned back to her work, he left his stoop to saunter over. "You look like you could use some company after a hard day like this," he crooned. "You have a name, little bird?"

She pursed her lips, keeping her eyes trained on the clothes, and did not respond.

"You are wasting your time, monsieur," said one of the other girls. "That one is a mute."

"And a prude," another piped up. "Come back with a few francs tonight, though, and _I_ will give you some company."

"A mute, eh?" the man repeated, and he edged so close to Christine that she nearly gagged at the sour smell of raw meat and beer that seemed to seep from his glistening pores. "Ten minutes with me, darling, and I'll have you singing."

She hung the last of the clothes from her basket and hurried back inside before anyone could see the fresh tears stinging her eyes.

She would never sing again, in fact, and she did not even have the voice to tell him so.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when she trudged home, aching and weary.

Most of the girls slept in a small bunk room attached to the laundry. She had tried it, on occasion, when even the thought of the five-minute walk back to her flat was too much to bear. But that same room, she had learned, was also a place of business for those women who chose to supplement their meager income with gentlemen callers, and she had not stayed there since the night when one such caller mistook her for a willing recipient of his advances.

She knew how fortunate she was to have a place of her own, and she knew that the others gossiped about how she managed it: a wealthy benefactor, perhaps, seduced by her feminine wiles. The truth was that it belonged to her longtime friend and mentor Antoinette Giry. The ballet instructor and her daughter, Meg, had lived in the small apartment for years, up until Meg caught the eye of a wealthy Italian investor during one of his backstage visits. Two months and a wedding later, both women were relocating to Italy.

Christine had been forced to bid them farewell two days after her own engagement came to its inevitable end. Like a mother hen, Madame Giry had seen past the soprano's brave face and drawn the truth right out of her, until it was all settled that Christine would occupy the newly vacant flat as long as was needed. Raoul would not have kicked her out, of course, but every hour in that house with him had become soul-crushing. So she had accepted.

Four months in, she was still brimming with gratitude and continued to say as much in her letters to Meg, who had paid a year's worth of rent in advance. Christine could never have otherwise afforded such privacy on her measly three-and-a-half francs a day.

She used some of those wages now in the shops along her route home, on some bread and cheese and a bit of dried beef. She was desperately hungry. But before eating, she decided, she would wash up. Her skin was still damp with perspiration, blackened by soot and smoke, and coated in grime loosed from the dirty linens and garments. Her cloak and frock needed laundering, too, and she both looked and felt like a vagrant. Oh, what she would not have given in that moment for a proper bath.

A bitter wind was picking up, blowing directly into her face and stinging her cheeks. She pulled her hood more tightly around her face, until it nearly obscured her vision and she collided directly with a solid figure just outside her building.

The impact knocked her satchel from her hand, and she emitted a small gasp of surprise. She felt a steadying hand on her arm, and the male voice that accompanied it sounded amused. "Scusi, signorina." The satchel was pushed back into her hands, and when she finally got her bearings, she found herself facing a gangly, tan-skinned man who leered down at her from beneath a crop of dark hair.

"You are not hurt?" he asked, his accent thick.

She could not explain it, but there was something about him that made her stomach knot. Her mind reflexively recalled the knife that she now kept tucked in her boot when she was out. She shook her head, flashed him a faint smile of gratitude, and pushed past him and into her building.

It took all four flights of stairs for her heart to stop hammering, and by then she was ready to collapse from exhaustion. At the door to her flat, she stopped and stared, her brain trying to piece together what she was looking at.

There was a small chunk of wood missing near the handle, as though the door had been kicked in.

Perhaps she should not open it, then. But she was so tired, and so hungry, and what else was she to do?

It was locked, at least. Christine turned the key and pushed into the little apartment, letting her satchel hit the floor as she closed the door behind her. She had opened the curtains before she left, hoping for sunlight that would warm the flat, and the street lamps outside lit the room just enough for her to spot the anomaly.

There was a tall, dark figure propped up in the corner, his impossibly long legs stretched out before him. He had one hand tucked inside his black tailcoat, as though clutching his abdomen. Even in the low lighting, she could make out the flecks of crimson on his otherwise spotless white shirt. She could make out his expansive palms and long fingers, and his black hat.

He looked up at her through one blue eye and one golden brown, his white shell of a mask glowing in the lamplight. Half-bloated lips parted in surprise.

"Ah," he said, his silky tenor just as captivating as she had remembered. " _You_ are not Madame Giry."


	2. Erik

" _You_ are not Madame Giry."

The words died somewhere in the too-small space between Christine and the Phantom, giving way to strained silence. Had her stomach not been so empty, she might have voided its contents right then and there.

Her fear, however, began to dissipate as anger set in. How could he have the nerve to come back here, after everything he had done? How could he be so cavalier about seeing her?

But when she studied him again, she could see that his free hand was trembling. "Forgive me the incivility of not standing," he said, "but I have lost blood, and I am quite unconvinced that you are real."

There it was: her out. She could simply back out the door and run to safety, and he would be none the wiser. Or, at the very least, he would be hindered by an injury if he pursued her.

It would be like leaving him to die a second time.

She brought her own thin and shaking hands up to her hood and drew it back, watching his mismatched eyes widen as she removed the kerchief and unbound her hair. It fell against her back in a heap, and she heard his subsequent intake of breath.

"Christine," he whispered hoarsely. His lips parted and closed multiple times before he added, "I had hoped I was mistaken."

She was unsure how to interpret that, so she did not try. Instead, she removed and hung her cloak. Then, with measured caution, she crossed to where he sat propped against the wall, picking up a clean hand towel from beside the washbasin along the way. He watched in apparent disbelief as she knelt down beside him.

She reached for the tie of his cloak. "No," he gasped, quickly intercepting her. His free hand curled around her knuckles, gentle but assertive, so broad that it eclipsed her hand entirely. It was at once both familiar and startling, and she flinched. She saw the pain in his eyes as he released her.

He softened his voice to address her, but his conviction remained. "I swore that I would keep my distance," he told her. "I will not allow you to become tangled in my affairs. You must leave me, Christine, at once."

_But I_ live _here_ , she wanted to tell him, though of course she could not.

She almost had to laugh. How many times had she considered what she might say to him, were she given the opportunity? How many times had she been tempted to curse his name? Yet here she was, without her voice, the very thing that had gotten her into this ordeal in the first place.

And she certainly could not curse his name, for she had never _asked_ his name, never handed him even that basic scrap of humanity. That point stung her to this day. How could she have expected a man assigned so little worth in his life to find it in others?

She was still furious with him, but she was not heartless.

Christine reached for the cloak tie again, pinning him with a look. He did not interfere this time. His anxiety was evident, though, and his breath hitched as she released the cloak and began to peel back the tailcoat on his right side. He had a handkerchief pressed to the black silk waistcoat there, on the far right, just below his ribcage. The square of cloth was soaked through with blood.

"Knife wound," he said quietly. "It is not as bad as it looks, though it will need stitching."

As it stood, both his shirt and vest were sticking to the open wound; that would not do. She suspected that he knew as much but had left things as they were for modesty's sake. Or, perhaps, the pain of movement was too intense for him to work through multiple layers of clothing. At that thought, she bit her lip; the obvious remedy was far too intimate.

She took a deep breath and pulled his left hand off of the wound. It was slick with blood. Before he could protest, she had removed the bloodied handkerchief and replaced it with both the fresh towel and the pressure of her own hand. Then, with her free hand, she began to push the tailcoat off the shoulder of his uninjured left side.

He inhaled sharply before uttering a wisp of a word on an outward breath: "Angel."

She helped him shuck the coat from his left side so that he would not have to twist his torso, and then she peeled it off his other arm, always keeping one hand firmly pressed to his abdomen. He was left in his white shirtsleeves and black vest, and it reminded her of the last time she had seen him, so broken and vulnerable, on the floor of his home.

Next, she began to unbutton the dark waistcoat. She felt his chest constrict, saw surprise flit across his face. He began moving his left hand in tandem, long fingers deftly freeing the buttons, and when her knuckles inadvertently brushed his, she flinched and drew back, leaving him to finish the last fastener.

With the waistcoat loose, Christine removed the compress just long enough to peel the vest from the matted clump of blood and shirt at the wound site. Once she had returned the towel, she and he exchanged glances. Only his shirt was left now. His breathing grew heavier as his hand, trembling again, reached up to untie the white cravat at his throat.

Perhaps she ought to have helped again, but she could only watch as he tugged the necktie from around his collar and tossed it aside, and as his fingers systematically released each shirt button from its enclosure. His eyes never left her face, and she found herself diverting her gaze until he had finished.

When his movements stopped, the shirt lay untucked and parted at the center, exposing only a sliver of pale skin. She looked up; he was watching her, waiting. She steeled herself, lifted the compress, and peeled back the right half of the shirt.

He let out a small hiss as silk detached from skin. The gash in his flesh was angry—a deep, dark, glistening crimson—and fresh blood brimmed at its surface with the removal of the fabric. But he was right; it did not seem too bad, in the grand scheme of things. It was not terribly long, though it looked painful.

She pressed the towel to the wound and placed his hand there so that she could stand. She found a clean washcloth and soaked it in the washbasin, rubbing in a bit of soap as she did so. Then she returned to his side, wiped off his blood-crusted palm, and motioned for him to lift the towel.

He was silent as she washed the area around his wound, save for the occasional swift intake of breath that betrayed his discomfort. She was glad for it. Reason told her that she could not get through this night without revealing to him the fate of her voice, but she would continue to hold out hope and put off that admission as long as possible.

Her eyes wandered as she worked. His chest was broader than his slender legs—of that she had already been aware. She could see enough of the pale flesh now, though, to know that it was smooth and hairless, and that there was a faint outline of abdominal muscle that dipped beneath his high-waisted trousers. She felt herself flush, knowing that he still watched her every move, and turned her attention back to the site of the cut.

When she had cleaned his skin to her liking, she tossed the soiled rag aside and pressed the towel back to the still-weeping wound. As she hovered there, debating what to do next, his large hand alighted on hers. "Is there no end to your compassion?" he asked, and Christine sensed that she was not meant to answer.

She took in his eyes, wide with admiration, and his hand, affectionately covering hers, and she suddenly felt dizzy. Even in its kneeling position, her body threatened to keel over. She briefly closed her eyes against the spinning room, and then she withdrew her hand, leaving him to stanch the bleeding on his own.

She managed to push herself to her feet without fainting. The basin water, when she went to wash her own hands, was utterly frigid; it occurred to her that the room must be cold, too. She wondered whether he was cold, or whether he was impervious to the chill after so much time spent underground.

"I fear it is true, then, about your voice?"

She froze. For a moment the only sound in the room was the erratic _plink_ of the water dripping from her fingertips and into the basin, whose contents were now tinged pink. Then she reached for the last clean towel and dried her hands.

When at last she turned to face him, she was fighting back tears. She flashed him a questioning, almost accusatory look. _How did you know?_

He pursed his lips. "My tailcoat pocket," he said, nodding his head toward the garment. "Inside the lining."

Confused and irritated, she walked over to rifle through the coat. Her fingers found a slip of paper in an inside pocket at the left breast—just over where his heart would be—and she pulled it out.

It was a small newspaper clipping. PARIS DIVA SUFFERS PERMANENT VOICE LOSS, the headline announced, and she did not need to read further. She briefly closed her eyes and swallowed. She had not even known that the story had made the papers; perhaps Raoul had shielded her from such knowledge. But then, she had become so despondent by that point, so withdrawn, that it could have been front-page news and she likely would not have noticed.

She tucked the clipping back into his pocket and got up to light the stove.

"That was published in a Parisian newspaper dated five months ago," he said to her back. "Yet I found that very issue a mere four weeks ago, on a windowsill in Vienna, across the street from an apartment once inhabited by Mozart himself."

Of course he would have fled to the city of music, she thought as she struck a match.

"So strange—is it not?—that news of you should find me in such a serendipitous manner. One might say it was designed by fate."

At this, she rounded on him. His eyebrows rose in question of her obvious indignation, but of course she could not voice a response. She went back to the door for her satchel and withdrew the small notebook that she kept on hand for moments such as this.

_Is that why you are here?_ she scrawled furiously in pen, and she held out the page for him to see.

His expression turned sheepish, and she felt her face grow immediately hot with anger. "Ah. Well. It is not the reason why I am in this apartment specifically, no." His jaw twitched with obvious discomfort. "It is, however, what prompted my return to Paris."

She stared at him for several seconds before slamming the notebook shut. Her hands began to shake again—whether from terror or rage, she could not tell. She turned her back to him so that he could not see her eyes watering. Would she never be released from that far-reaching gaze?

"You must believe me that I never intended for our paths to cross," he said, more desperately now. "I merely sought to find a cure and send it your way. How could I let the world be deprived of such a voice? Oh, Christine, how I wept when I read the news! It is the cruelest trick that life could play on such an undeserving victim!"

The tears came easily now. Had she not already hit rock bottom? Yet here was a deformed and lonesome man who had murdered and kidnapped and extorted and manipulated, and he _pitied her_.

More than that, a small part of her—a part that she loathed—could not help but be crushed that he had come back for her voice, and not for her.

She placed her notebook on the small dining table by the stove, and she leaned over to press her hands against the wooden surface for support. She kept her eyes shielded from him, but she knew that her shaking shoulders and short gasps of breath betrayed her.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. "Truly, Christine, I did not know that you would be here. I could not live with myself if I hurt you again." His voice wavered as he added, "I scarcely did the last time."

She made herself turn to look at him then, for this was new, and his eyes were almost fierce in their desperation. The Phantom she had known had never apologized to anyone, never revealed a shred of evidence betraying his vulnerability. No, this was more like the man she had glimpsed in those final moments in his lair, when her touch had seemed to crack open his hard-shelled exterior and expose his tender inner workings. Had she somehow made a permanent mark?

He still sat with his back to the wall, hand to his abdomen and long legs undisturbed. He must have truly been in pain, she thought, to have not moved at all. She recalled a man whose body had been just as active as his sharp mind, brimming with sweeping hand gestures and long strides of leg and near-caresses. She shivered at the memory.

Meanwhile, he groaned at the sight of her watery eyes, uttering only two words: "Oh, Christine."

The tears were subsiding, however, as one of his earlier statements began to eat away at her, until she reached for the notebook again and, with wounded pride, penned her question: _Did you find a cure?_

The regret in his face was answer enough. "Not yet," he said. "I have written to the most prominent physicians in Paris and elsewhere, promising a large sum of money to whomever can deliver. The responses so far have been either clueless speculations or proposals of egregious surgical procedures that I would not wish on my worst enemy. You have such a rare condition, my dear."

She knew. Who could have foreseen, after all, that when she lost her voice in the course of regular illness, it would simply never return? Her treating physician had been aware of only two such cases in all of his reading. In fact, he had later announced that he wished to publish a case study. "Your identity will be withheld, of course," he had told her, to which she had wanted to reply, _Has it not been already?_

"I bought out an empty flat whose address I have used for my correspondence, along with a pseudonym," the Phantom continued. It occurred to her that this was the most he had ever spoken to her on matters not concerning her singing. "I stop by once a night, at varying hours, to check for replies. I was ambushed there this evening. Outnumbered."

_Who?_ she mouthed.

He shrugged. "I have made many enemies over the years." He shifted against the wall, wincing. "These men were Italian, though, and I know of only one Italian who might hold a grudge."

She felt her eyes widen. The last she had heard, La Carlotta had returned to Italy after her lover's death, where she was rumored to perform at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

And then she remembered the unsettling Italian man hovering outside her building.

"I was being pursued while wounded and not thinking clearly," he continued. "I recalled that Antoinette Giry had lived here with her daughter, and I made a quick decision. It was a risk that I no longer wish I had taken. Tell me, Christine, why are you here and not safe at home with your vicomte?"

He could not know how much his words stung her, so innocently had he uttered them. Was he so far gone that he had not noticed the bare swath of skin on her ring finger?

She gestured broadly to their surroundings and pointed to her chest. _Mine._

His lips fell open—lips dark and dry and malformed, so bloated that when she had kissed them, she could hardly tell where they began and ended. Even now, she could not help but fixate on them. In her darkest of dreams, her mind had entertained what it might feel like to have those lips kissing back, skimming against her throat.

"You live here?" he asked, his voice suddenly dry and crackling, and she nodded. "Alone?" Another nod. "Oh, Christine," he whispered. "What has befallen you since I so selfishly derailed your life?"

And again, she knew that she was not meant to respond. Still, her mind could not help but consider the answer.

Illness had been an inevitability, she supposed. The tidal wave of events surrounding _Don Juan Triumphant_ had changed her irrevocably, left her unable to find footing, and as a result she had been sucked into its undertow. She had picked at her food, had rarely left the house for fresh air, and had slept poorly.

But Raoul, bless him, had visited her room every day, often with a cheerful bouquet and stories to make her laugh. He had dined with her when she managed to dress and go downstairs for dinner, and when she did not, he would send for a tray and dine with her on her window seat. She had found that, despite her misgivings, she looked forward to his visits.

Despite her misgivings—for did he not deserve better?—she had loved him.

She had loved him because _he_ had been the man who ultimately channeled her father: perhaps not Gustave's creative spirit, but at the very least his warmth and kindness, his willingness to move the earth to put a smile on her face.

The cold that she contracted in his care had only served to highlight his optimism. "Give it time," he had said from his seat at her bedside, when the illness had left her without her voice for a week. "The doctor said that some people lose their voice for up to three weeks, remember? And you are not yourself lately."

But one week became three, and then three became six, until she finally began to unravel.

Raoul had eventually asked whether she wanted to cancel the engagement. "I made a promise when I gave you a ring," he had said, "and I will keep to it if that is what you want. But, Christine, you are not yourself anymore."

_He_ was not happy, she had realized. And because she still loved him, she had released him, the same courtesy that had been extended to her only months prior by the man who now sat injured on her floor. 

"If you would be so kind as to lend me a needle and thread," he said, "I shall close this wound and then leave you in peace." 

Again she was tempted to laugh. She rose so that she could withdraw, from her little sewing basket, the now-empty spool of thread that she had yet to replace, and she held it up for him to see. 

"Ah," he said. "How unfortunate. I suppose I shall be making a stop, then." 

What a fool he was, she thought, to suppose he ought to wander out for thread while wounded and bloodied, with an apparent price on his head. 

She shook her head and tapped her chest to indicate that she would do the shopping. That much, she was certain she could handle. He began to protest, but she held up a hand to indicate that it was not up for discussion. "At the very least," he edged in, "take this," and he gave her a handful of banknotes from his pocket that she tucked into her bodice. 

"You do not have to do this," he added, even as she pulled on her cloak. 

He was certainly right about that. In fact, she ought to bypass the shops entirely and go straight to the police station a block away. Why on earth had she suddenly become so invested in helping him, particularly when he _still_ could not stay out of her affairs? 

Because he deserved to be treated as more than a monster for once in his life. Surely everyone deserved that? 

She walked back to him and picked up the pen and paper once more. _Your name_ , she wrote. 

His head snapped up to look at her. "My name," he whispered, as though in a daze. "Yes, I suppose that is a thing that one would have." He hesitated, and his tongue darted out to moisten those broad lips. "It was—is—Erik." 

With that single utterance, she saw the last of his self-erected facade crumbling before her. The maestro of cool and sharp-edged mystery was truly just like her, a creature of flesh and blood and feeling. _Erik_. 

He watched her curiously now, and she realized that she had been staring. With a start, she tucked the notebook back into her satchel and made for the door. 

"Christine." 

With her hand on the doorknob, she turned to look at him. His face was passive, resigned. "I would not blame you if you were not to return." 

She cast one last glance at him and slipped out into the hall. 

The strange man was gone when she stepped out of her building; she felt a knot of anxiety in her shoulders release. But there were still many more such knots, binding her muscles so tightly that it almost hurt to breathe. Now that she was out of range of those piercing eyes, logic and reason had begun to wrestle with her earlier empathy. 

There was a _murderer_ in her apartment. How could she let that go? And even if she _did_ care about his well-being, he had nearly died at the hands of the men who were likely still tracking him; perhaps he would be safer in prison. 

_Not with that face_ , piped up a doubtful voice in the back of her head, and she tried to ignore it. 

Christine's legs carried her to the police station, where she hovered indeterminately for some time, on several occasions moving for the door handle and immediately retreating. Finally, she took a deep breath and walked away. 

She traveled a few streets over, where the shops catering to wealthier patrons were open until ten o'clock, and she purchased thread as well as ointment and fresh linen to dress Erik's wound. _Erik_. The name still stuck out as an anomaly in her mind. 

The trip was quick. In fifteen minutes she was back at her building, pulling open the heavy front door, when a wiry brown hand planted itself against the wood and slammed it shut. She knew whose it was before he spoke. 

"Hello again, signorina." 

She looked up into a narrow, clean-shaven face and cold, dark eyes that undermined the tight-lipped smile beneath them. 

"I am not wanting to bother you," he said, his voice both lilting and raspy, "but I am looking for a man with a mask. Maybe you have seen him?" 

She shook her head, hoping that her face did not betray her. 

"Ah, my mistake," he replied, but he remained with his forearm leaning against the door. "You see, I saw you deciding whether to go to _la polizia_ , and I found it to be a very strange thing." 

She looked down at her paper shopping bag and did not—could not—respond. 

"But no," he continued, "it seems you have gone shopping instead. What did you buy this evening, signorina?" Before she could react, he had snatched the bag from her hands and was rummaging through it. "You are treating a wound, perhaps?" he asked with a leer. But then he handed the bag back to her and opened the door, motioning for her to enter. Puzzled, she pushed past him and headed for the stairs. 

She heard him whistle behind her, as though summoning a dog. Then suddenly he was right at her side, practically jostling her, and he leaned in to put his mouth next to her ear. "Take us to him," he murmured, "and perhaps we will leave you untouched." 

Christine stilled momentarily. When she turned her head just a bit to the left, she could make out another figure in her periphery, someone shorter and stockier than the man delivering threats. 

What choice did she have? 

Heart pounding, she led them up the four flights of stairs to her flat, where she hesitated outside the door. Surely she ought to signal Erik? 

"Open it," the man hissed. 

She could think of only one way to warn him, and they would not be able to stop her. As she inserted her key into the lock, she knocked. Loudly. 

Her captor snarled and pushed her out of the way, shoving the door open. It had barely swung around to hit the inside wall with a _crack_ before he lurched forward, flopping onto the ground like a fish. A terrible choking sound escaped his throat. 

Across the room, Erik stood tense and erect, bloodied shirt falling open to expose his pale and lean torso. He had one arm extended, and Christine could trace a thin wire from his hand to the neck of the man writhing on the floor. Erik flicked his wrist, and the man's choking sounds amplified in her ears until she thought she might be sick. 

And then, silence. Stillness. 

Erik was looking at her, and then he was looking past her, eyes narrowing with malice. By the time she followed his gaze, the stockier man was already tearing for the stairs. With a growl, Erik jerked the garrotting wire from his victim's neck and took off down the hall in pursuit. Christine was left to stand in the doorway of the apartment that she now shared with a dead man. 

Somehow, she had the presence of mind to shut the door against prying eyes. Then she sat on her worn loveseat, folded her hands, and tried not to look at the body. Or think about it. Or the fact that the Phantom of the Opera had just killed again. 

It was justified if it was self-defense, though, was it not? But then, what if his victim was the executioner appointed to serve justice for the life he had taken? 

It was too complex a problem, with too many ethical considerations, and quite frankly Christine did not see how killing anyone ever really solved anything in the first place if it was only going to trigger a chain of lives to be snuffed out. Her vision began going black in its periphery. 

She wished she had stopped Erik from pursuing the other man. Would he have heeded her wishes, she wondered? 

As though on cue, he burst into the room. His muscles and jaw were taut, his eyes alert, and they immediately sought her out. "I lost him," he ground out. He was breathing heavily, the gash in his side oozing fresh blood. She grabbed a dishcloth and moved to stanch the bleeding. 

"No," he said, more gently now, and he put his hands on hers to stop them. "No, darling angel, he will be back with reinforcements. He has seen your face and knows where you live." She knew what he was going to say next, and yet it did nothing to ease the blow: "You can no longer stay here, Christine. We need to leave." 


	3. Flight

"Pack what you need," Erik ordered. "Three minutes."

There were all sorts of things wrong with this scenario, and Christine's brain would likely unpack all of it later, but in the meantime the very real possibility of being ambushed spurred her into action. She pushed the dishcloth for Erik's wound into his hands and hurried into the adjoining bedroom.

From beneath the bed she produced her trusty carpet bag, a horrid-looking brown thing that still held up after years of travel with her father. She was used to living out of it, and she already owned so little; therefore, preparations were fast and undaunting—so fast, in fact, that she fully intended to use what little time she had left in order to cut strips of linen and bandage Erik's torso. When she returned to the sitting area, however, she found him back in his full, intimidating ensemble. A blanket now covered the body on the floor, for which she was exceedingly grateful.

Erik was leaning against the wall but straightened when he saw her, as though to suggest that he had not just given chase with an open stab wound. Once she had strapped her satchel over her shoulder and tucked the purchased items inside, she frowned and glanced pointedly at his injury site.

"It can wait until we are safe," he said. "Are you ready?" When she glanced anxiously at the shrouded figure on the floor, he added, "I shall return tomorrow to take care of it. Nothing will be traced back to you."

With one final look around the tiny home that she had kept for herself these last four months, Christine nodded her consent and made for the door.

"This way," Erik murmured, leading her away from the nearest staircase. "I found another exit." He reached over and took the carpet bag from her hand: a chivalrous gesture, no doubt, but a foolish one given his injury. Without slowing, she snatched it right back, and she challenged him with a look when he turned to face her with irritated astonishment.

"I am hardly infirm," he bit out, but he made no move to reclaim the luggage.

He led her down a staircase at the opposite end of the building. He was favoring his uninjured side, she noticed, but the imbalance was so slight that anyone without context might have missed it.

When they reached the door to the street, Erik made her wait inside while he surveyed the exterior. "It looks clear," he said upon his return, "but I do not think it wise to travel these streets."

_What is the alternative?_ Christine wanted to ask, but she had a sinking feeling that she already knew.

With long-legged strides so brisk that she jogged to keep up with him, Erik led her around the corner, past a low stone wall, and through a wooden gate to a back alley. There, he pulled up a round manhole cover while she watched with increasing unease. Her discomfort must have been obvious, for his lips pulled taut when he looked to her again.

"I know these sewers better than any man in the city," he told her. "It is, perhaps, an outrageous request for me to make in light of everything that has occurred, but I must ask you to trust me." He stood still, waiting for her reaction.

She was tempted to snort with derisive laughter. The truth was, however, that she _did_ trust him, at least in that moment. She could feel in her gut that he had made her safety paramount, and her gut rarely led her astray, even when logic and reason suggested otherwise. It was not a question of whether he would get her to safety, but rather of what he would do _after_ he got her to safety that made her nervous. She chewed at her chapped bottom lip—a habit for which he had chided her in their lessons, long ago—and she nodded.

His jaw lost some of its tension. "Wait one moment," he said, and he stepped down into the hole in the ground. She heard the clang of his boots against iron as he descended a ladder into the darkness below. She edged over to the opening and could spy only the faint white of his mask and shirt as she peered down. "Your bag," Erik instructed, his voice echoing softly in the tunnel, and she was willing to surrender it now if it meant that she would not go tumbling into the sewer on her way down. She dropped it in and heard the soft _thump_ of impact to indicate that he had caught it.

"Now you," he called to her. "Carefully, my dear."

She inhaled sharply. How could he continue to address her so graciously? She had betrayed him, unmasked him, left him broken and alone at the hands of an approaching mob: all justified given the circumstances, of course, but certainly nothing to endear her to him.

Legs shaking, Christine lowered one foot and then the other, descending the cold ladder with an iron grip. Erik helped her to find her footing at the end, his hands at her waist and elbow only as long as necessary. The smell of the tunnel was not as terrible as she had expected, but it was enough to make her head ache and her stomach churn. Her eyes darted around as she waited for them to adjust, but there was nothing for them to adjust to in this suffocating blackness. She felt her breaths growing shallower by the second.

A cool hand slipped into hers. "Come," Erik said, and he led her forward.

The only sound down here was the splash of their boots kicking up shallow water, and the rush of a current in the distance. Though she was not fond of the setting, she found his presence easier now. He was a man of the underground, after all, and therefore much less unsettling down here than, say, in her apartment.

Something scurried past her ankles, and she reacted with both a jump and a gasp. Erik's grip on her hand tightened in reassurance. "The rats are more frightened of you than you are of them," he said. "They help reduce the organic waste by eating it, so in truth, we ought to encourage their presence."

Her stomach churned again, and she wished that he would just stop talking. Instead, he added, "I tell you this because it is likely that we will encounter more. It is said that there are two rats down here for every Parisian above ground."

Christine gulped a breath of air. As though on cue, there came a faint chattering noise from the opposite side of the tunnel. She moved closer to Erik, not even caring when her forearm became plastered to his as a result. He had utterly enchanted her with his underground palace last year, and to have such sharp realism injected into her fantasies was disheartening. How had he kept his own home vermin-free? She shuddered—even the _word_ "vermin" made her shudder—and vowed to never set foot below ground again.

With their hands intertwined, Christine could feel the cold, sleek metal of Erik's pinky ring: the very one, she presumed, that he had slid onto her hand in a public moment of desperation. She could still recall how it felt on her ring finger: cool and heavy, such an alien presence on her hand that she had thought to return it to its owner even amid the chaos of her departure from his lair. Once gone, though, it had left the circumference of her finger naked and wanting.

Raoul had covered that empty swath of skin with a new engagement ring, to replace the secret one that Erik had yanked from its place around her neck. It was even more ornate than the original—a pity ring, perhaps?—with a delicate gold band and three large, rose-cut diamonds.

Rose: the cut that looked best in candlelight. The irony had not been lost on her. She had found herself missing the heft of the larger band, and the sense that it was a heartfelt piece of the man who had stripped it from his own hand.

They walked for several minutes before Erik halted. He lifted her hand to set it against cold iron: another ladder. "Wait for my signal," he said. She heard the rustle of his cloak as he ascended the ladder with quiet swiftness, then the scrape of metal against pavement as he moved the manhole cover. Her heartbeat quickened as she considered what dangers might await them above. Suddenly, the sewers did not seem so bad after all.

"All clear," came Erik's low voice. Christine gripped the iron rails, willing her hands to stop shaking, and climbed up to join him. She accepted his offer of help at the top and clambered out of the manhole as fast as humanly possible.

They had emerged in a narrow courtyard between buildings. Though she could hear the sound of horse hooves and nighttime revelry close by, this particular location—tucked away from the streets—was eerily quiet. Some of the windows overhead were illuminated, suggesting apartments or hotels.

He led her to a neighboring building whose windows were completely darkened, and he ushered her into its pitch-black interior, shutting the door behind them so that she had to wait for his guidance in order to move.

There was a soft snap of a match, the tiny burst of flame illuminating his face and hand as he set a lantern aglow. He lifted the light to better showcase their surroundings: a dank and narrow hallway, covered in peeling wallpaper, with rows of doors on either side.

"This whole building is condemned," he said, motioning for her to follow him down the hall. "Irreversible water damage due to faulty plumbing. It is long overdue for demolition, but the city has dragged its heels." Again Christine heard the telltale scratching of little rodent feet, and she found herself fighting back tears now.

"Unfortunately for the luxury hotel next door, this has resulted in the depreciation of property values and allure. But that guarantees an unending tenancy, with no questions asked, for anyone who is willing to pay." He stopped at a staircase and turned to face her. "My hotel room is on the fifth floor, accessible from the roof that abuts this one. I do not think that our pursuers will have found it yet, and it will provide us a reprieve." Here he held out his hand to her, hesitantly. "The staircase appears sound, but I would rather not take any chances."

Again, what else could she do? She took it, heard his tiny sigh of relief, and followed him.

This was the nature of their relationship: he outlined the terms, and he expected her to follow. He may have changed in some respects, she thought, but not this. Raoul, bless his heart, had been guilty of the same. Even worse was when she had been at the center of a tug of war between the two men, and it was now clear to her that resolution had only occurred when she had broken free of the rope entirely.

She could not handle the notion of being tugged around on a leash again. She would play along for now, given the circumstances, but this could not last. She prayed fervently that when all was said and done, Erik would set her free again.

Despite all of that, however, there was reassurance in the way his broad and callused hand enveloped hers as they climbed four flights of stairs. She had never minded this—quite the opposite, in fact. Like him, his grip was both strong and tender. But her mind suddenly flashed back to that hand as it pulled a noose taut around a man's neck; had Piangi met his end in a similarly violent and undignified fashion? Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she forced it down, forced herself to think of anything but the body flopping like a fish on her apartment floor.

They emerged on the rooftop of the building, where Christine was treated to a breathtaking view of Paris lit up at night. She all but stopped to look, and Erik rounded on her when the pull of his arm was met with resistance. From the corner of her eye, she could see his face soften as he followed her gaze.

"Christine," he said gently. "There is no time to stall."

She nodded and followed him onto the raised edge of the roof, gingerly stepping down to the slightly lower edge of the neighboring hotel. On that roof, there was a hatch opening to a staircase below, where he raised a palm for her to stop. "I will check the room first. If I have not returned in five minutes, go back the way we came and find safety." He set the lantern beside her and descended into the hotel, eyes trained on her with an unreadable expression until he left her line of sight.

She stared numbly at the darkened cityscape while she waited. She supposed she ought to be offended by the impropriety of the situation—an unmarried woman, alone in a man's room!—but all notions of propriety with Erik had flown out the window the day he spoke to her in her dressing room. Yet, he was still startlingly well-mannered in most other respects.

He returned a few minutes later with another all-clear, and she was guided down the stairs and into a posh hallway, where he inserted a key into the nearest door.

Four months in Raoul's home just barely prepared her for how elegant the accommodations were: rosewood furniture with gilded edges, green velvet upholstery, luxe carpet and thick curtains, and a four-poster bed tucked away in the corner. The room was impeccably kept, with no evidence of anyone living there, not even an errant shoe or drinking-glass.

Erik quickly shut the door and set down her carpet bag. "Anything you need is yours," he told her. "Please do whatever it takes to make yourself comfortable."

It was laughable, really; they both knew that to be impossible. Still, she sat at a small table and withdrew from her satchel the fare she had purchased for supper.

She was already tearing hungrily into the baguette when Erik set a plate before her. Sheepishly, she moved the food onto it.

"Wine?" he offered, and she nodded. She ate so fervently that she barely registered the pop of the cork or the pour of the red, and when the glass was placed in front of her she drank with abandon. He sat in a chair across the room, face impassive as he watched her.

Christine was more than halfway through her meal before she thought to offer him a morsel. "No, thank you," he replied. She studied him now; he still appeared to favor one side, and it occurred to her that he must have irritated his wound even further in their escape. She frowned, pointing to her midsection and then to him. "Soon," he assured her. "After you eat."

She narrowed her eyes and downed the last of her wine. Then she collected the new spool of thread from her satchel and a needle from the sewing supplies in her carpet bag, and she forced both of these at Erik with a look of insistence.

"Ah," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Thank you."

To give him privacy, she grabbed her carpet bag and wordlessly excused herself to the bathroom in order to wash up and change.

She was stunned to find that the opulent washroom was larger than the bedroom in her flat. The walls were lined with gleaming hardwood wainscoting and olive-green wallpaper. The porcelain tub and sink were encased in the same dark hardwood, and above the sink hung an enormous mirror edged in gold fleurs-de-lis. There were fresh towels and pretty soaps and luxurious-looking creams.

It was heaven.

Her gaze kept wandering back to the bathtub and its bright copper fixtures. In Raoul's home, the vast kitchen stove had heated a copper water tank, and as long as the stove was burning, various fixtures around the house could draw hot water from the tank. She wondered whether this tub was capable of the same. It had been utterly miraculous, that access to heated, running water.

Desperation overcame pride and modesty, and she beckoned Erik from the doorway until he stood next to her at the tub. "You would like a bath?" he asked uncertainly, in response to her pointing. She nodded with perhaps too much enthusiasm; he paled and faltered. "Ah. Yes. I...of course." He cleared his throat. "There should be hot water, as long as the other guests have not used too much. It is at your disposal."

He left her to her own devices, and she tried not to feel guilty as she locked the door behind him and it made a clicking sound that she was certain he'd heard.

It was fortunate that she had no voice in that moment, for the moan that she would have emitted upon sinking into the bath would have been unfit for innocent ears. She let herself soak with abandon, and she wondered why she had already begun to feel so at ease in Erik's company.

She no longer had anything to prove, she realized. She had no voice for him to critique, no perceived need to earn his approval. He had seen her at her best and at her worst, with emotions laid bare and vulnerable, and after all of that he had still professed his love for her. There was nothing left of her to hold back from him.

No—that was not quite true, and she shivered at the thought. But physicality was out of the question here.

He could play host all he wanted, and she would indulge him for now because she was exhausted, but the fact remained that his actions had once again disrupted her life, this time forcing her out of her home.

Also, he was a murderer: a cold, calculating killer who showed no remorse. Yes, she would do well to remember that.

Except, she was not convinced regarding the lack of remorse. Was that not what she had seen in his eyes when they had faced each other one last time?

_Christine, I love you._

She choked back a sob and sank all the way under the water, hoping that it would drown the conflict raging on in her head.

* * *

She emerged from the bathroom clean and pink-skinned, in fresh clothes, with damp hair laid out over the towel around her shoulders. Erik was sitting at the vanity in the room, once again stripped down to his unbuttoned shirt. A small mirror was angled toward his torso, and he stared at it unblinkingly as he guided the needle and thread through his skin. The wound was nearly closed now, the surrounding area once again coated in fresh blood.

He did not look up at her until he had placed the last suture and snipped the thread. When he did spy her, his lips parted wordlessly, and she could not read the expression there. Christine turned around and went back into the bathroom.

When she returned, it was with a wet, clean washcloth that she then handed to him. She was less sympathetic now; if he could travel all this way with his injury, then he could certainly clean the wound by himself. He still thanked her, though, and set to doing just that. She watched him for a while, practically sighed in resignation, and then set to cutting long strips of linen.

"You are too kind," he said, quietly, when she handed him the finished bandages. He turned away from her to wrap them, but she could still hear the sharp intake of breath each time he was forced to pivot his torso. Still, she did not move to help him. Their last such contact had stirred up something in her that she did not care to revive.

When he had finished at last, he picked up a stack of clean clothes laid out nearby and excused himself to the bathroom. He emerged as resplendent as ever in his usual ensemble. The change seemed to restore his steely facade, and she felt herself shrinking as he straightened to his full height before her. "Now," he said, "what shall we do about our present situation, my Christine?"

Her jaw flinched. His eyes darkened, and she knew that he had caught it. "Ah, but not mine," he corrected with a sad smile. "Nor were you ever." He peered down at her, cocking his head. "Some guardian I have proven to be, hmm?"

She swallowed, and she saw his gaze flit to her throat. "Oh, Christine," he whispered. "How I long to hear your voice again."

His hand rose, his impossibly long fingers slowly unfurling and stretching out toward her throat. She stilled and held her breath. She knew that she should stop him, yet she found herself waiting for his inevitable caress, for him to lure her into his arms and lull her into a sense of complacency as he had once upon a time. How long had it been since she was last touched?

She began to lean in, staring at him hazily through half-lidded eyes. His fingertips closed in until they disappeared from view, under her chin, and then he seemed to catch himself, his hand jerking back as he swallowed and avoided her gaze. "Forgive me," he said, and his voice was strained. "I can only begin to imagine what you have been through."

Suddenly, her body could not carry its burdens any longer: the trauma of the last several hours, the empty sadness that her life had become, and now this newfound compassion from the most unlikely of sources. Her hands began to shake, and tears quickly manifested themselves in order to spill freely down her cheeks. She moved to sit in a chair before her legs gave out beneath her, letting her face fall into her waiting hands.

Not for the first time that night, she wished that it was Raoul standing opposite her, ready to gather her in his warm embrace.

Instead, Christine lifted her head to find a handkerchief pinched between pale fingertips, held out just within her reach. She took it, but she did not look at him.

"Perhaps it would be best if you went to bed," he said. "I imagine that you are tired. We shall talk in the morning."

When she imagined how wonderful a bed would feel under her aching limbs, she nearly cried again. Oh, how right he was. She forced herself to stand. It was only when she passed him on her way to the four-poster that she saw that his eyes were glistening, too.

* * *

She woke only once during the night. Her bleary eyes found the amber glow of a single candle flame across the room, and next to it, a solemn face behind a white half-mask.

He watched her intently. When he spoke, it was in a dulcet murmur that seemed to curl around her ears: "Sleep, my angel."

And so she did.


	4. Reunion

Each time that Christine's mind urged her to wake, her body dragged her back into slumber. Three times this happened when she could tell from the light in the room that it was well into morning. Each time, she felt a stab of anxiety that Erik might still be there and then, confusingly, even greater anxiety that he might not be. So heavy were her head and eyelids that she could not even bring herself to look for him, hinting at a deep-seated sense of safety that she would later try to deny existed.

When she finally did open her eyes, she spent five terrifying seconds panicked that she was missing work until she realized that it was Sunday, her one day off. Then she located  _him_.

He was sitting straight-backed in an armchair, one long leg crossed over the other, and he was reading a newspaper: the very picture of a gentleman, if one discounted the bone-colored porcelain masking half his face. It was perhaps the most relaxed she had ever seen him, but even then he still carried himself with a rigid solemnity.

She wondered whether he had even slept. She felt some guilt over taking the bed; he certainly owed her that much, and more, but he  _did_  have an injury.

When her gaze found his face again, he was looking right at her. She felt herself flush, and she sat up in bed, smoothing back her hair as she did so.

"Good morning," Erik greeted her. "May I get you something? Breakfast? Tea?" His courteous tone belied the utter absurdity of the situation.

She wanted coffee. It had become a vital part of her day since she had started working at the laundry. But he had not let her drink it under his tutelage, citing potential damage to her vocal cords, and she suspected that he did not drink it himself. Therefore, she did not ask.

Instead, feeling refreshed and emboldened, she gestured toward her satchel. He was up in an instant—too fast, judging by his subtle wince—and he brought it to her. He sat gingerly in a chair next to the bed as she pulled out her notebook and pen to write. This was her chance to say anything that she wanted, anything she had dreamed of saying these past eight months.

But there was nothing more that she needed to say about his treatment of her, she realized. She had made clear to him, that final night in his home, the anger and betrayal that she had felt. He knew, and he harbored remorse. She had seen it in his eyes then, and she could see it there now: the look of a man haunted by his own sins. Rehashing them right now would not be productive, and who knew how much time she had? So instead, she addressed the transgression of his that he had yet to answer for, the one that had shocked her to her core when she had come to fully process it. She wrote a single question, and then she angled the notebook for Erik to read it.

_Why did you murder Piangi?_

His jaw tightened. "So we are doing this now, are we?"

She replied so quickly that her penmanship suffered, but she hardly cared.  _If not now, when?_ She fixed him with a stare, waiting for him to reveal his intentions.

Instead, he muttered, "When indeed?" and rose to his feet. She watched him run a hand distractedly over the dark hair of his wig as he considered his response. "It was a matter of circumstance," he finally said. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Though she had suspected as much, Christine's anger flared at the utter senselessness of the act, so much that her mind could not form a coherent response. Erik watched her, tight-lipped. "It was not premeditated," he added. "In fact, I—" He paused, studying her face as though trying to predict a reaction, and she took to the notebook with impatience.

_Tell me._

"I do not remember killing him."

His words created a thick silence. She gaped at him. She did not write the question burning in her mind because she knew it was evident in her expression: how could one possibly forget taking the life of another man?

He sat back down in the chair, hunched forward with elbows to knees, hands clasped as he looked down at the floor. "There have been," he said, "a handful of episodes in which I have found myself having carried out entire sequences of events, without any awareness of having done so. Violent events." He raised his head to look at her now, skewering her with the eye on his masked side that was so icily blue it seemed near transparent. "It starts with rage, with blood pounding in my ears. My vision turns red and narrow. And then, nothing. Time and memory cease to exist, until I come to and must ascertain what I have done."

_And this happened during Don Juan?_

He nodded. "I saw you waiting in the wings, holding hands with that fop, and I became incensed. It occurred to me that if we could sing that duet together, then you might see—you might  _remember_ —the connection that we had. In fact, there was a moment on stage when I thought that, perhaps..." He shook his head and laughed low and quiet, without mirth. "No. A testament to your acting ability, I suppose."

She did not correct him, and she hoped that he had not seen the panic that had stilled her body.

"The next thing I knew," he said, "I was walking onstage in Piangi's cloak. And I felt, in my gut, what I had done."

_But did you regret it?_ she wrote.

"Not at the time, no." He got to his feet once more, extending a long arm to anchor his hand on one of the posts at the foot of the bed. "I cannot pretend to have liked the man, Christine, but I agree that it was a poor course of action. Forgive me."

Oh, she was seething now. A poor course of action! As though taking a life had been simply a misstep in the pursuit of his goal. She had never understood Ubaldo Piangi's devotion to La Carlotta, that much was true, but that was hardly something to  _die_  over. He had always been courteous to Christine despite his lover's vendetta, and he had always shown up ready to work, wielding his resonant voice with impressive skill.

_It is not only my forgiveness that you need_ , she wrote,  _and even that will be hard-won if you cannot comprehend the value of the life that you took._

"Yours is the only forgiveness that I seek," replied Erik succinctly.

_It should not be_.

He exhaled, the air whistling through the nose-holes in his mask. "Perhaps."

_What were the other such episodes that you spoke of?_

"The chandelier was one."

_And_   _Buquet's death?_

He took a slow, deep breath. "No; that was not. He had become far too much of a nuisance."

Well. At least he was honest. The confession made her feel sick to her stomach, however.

_What provoked all of these instances?_ she wrote.  _Why so much rage?_

Here he looked at her closely again, the unmasked parts of his face honest and open. "I was convinced that you were the one to save me, and I clung to that at all costs. Woe unto anyone who interfered."

_Including me._

He winced as though she had struck him. "Yes."

Dark and imposing as he was, he seemed so very  _human_  to her now. He had been utterly selfish, of course, but it was not hard to understand how a man so tortured and isolated could become so desperate for rescue. She knew that she need not—no,  _should_  not—apologize, but she wanted him to know her sympathy, even if she could never fully convey how crushed she had been to leave him so broken and alone.

_I am sorry I could not be that for you_ , she told him.

His eyes widened as they lifted from her words to her face. "Oh, but you were, Christine," he said with quiet reverence. "Perhaps it was not in the way that I had hoped, but you showed me that my salvation was entirely in my own hands."

She looked on in disbelief, scarcely believing her ears. She had not expected him to take responsibility for his actions, let alone credit her for that development.

"I have endured much cruelty in my lifetime," he went on, "and I have responded with malice. But you! How much cruelty you endured at my own hands, and you chose to respond with compassion! You are  _still_  making that choice, even though I do not deserve it. You are an angel, a saint, and I would have gladly thrown myself at your feet in worship."

His words made her uncomfortable. She was far from a saint, and she did not want to be worshipped.  _Don't_ , she wrote.  _Idolatry is perhaps what doomed us to begin with._

Erik nodded. "I understand that now. But until you, my dear, I had no context for relationships. I looked to Don Juan as a role model, for God's sake."

At this, she could not help herself; she smiled. In fact, she had to bite her lip to keep herself from erupting into silent laughter. It was utterly baffling that a genius could be so clueless when it came to human interaction.

His face softened. "'Loose now and then a scattered smile,'" he said, "'and that I will live upon _._ '"

She glanced at him questioningly, even as something inside of her fluttered and warmed at his words.

"Shakespeare," he said. "Ah, Christine, would that I could show you how you have changed me."

He already had, she thought, by opening himself up to her like this. But she seized the opportunity regardless.  _No more killing_ , she wrote.

His mouth tightened when she showed him the page. "That is a lot to ask," he said, "given the present circumstances."

She nodded resolutely.

"Ah," he continued, "but perhaps that is your aim. You would have me die at the hands of these men, knowing that I will do what you ask of me." There was no bitterness to his voice, only resignation.

Her eyes went wide as saucers. Did he truly think she wanted him dead? She was suddenly overcome by the realization of how glad she was that he was  _not_  dead, after all of this time. Eight months of not knowing—was that why he had haunted her dreams?

But she  _had_  known, hadn't she? Because she was inextricably linked to him, through the barriers of even space and time, and she would have felt it had he vanished from this earth: her angel of music, tall and dark and brooding, her opposite in every way except for the music that had brought them together. Even now the air crackled lightly between them, abuzz with tension and promise.

Christine shook her head fervently to indicate that, no, she did not wish him dead.

She could not say what possessed her to do what she did next—the heady rush of gratitude, perhaps, that he was alive and whole, or maybe the emergence of his raw and vulnerable humanity—but she found herself sliding out of the bed to go to him. She heard his swift intake of breath as she wrapped her arms around his torso, and then she lay her head against his shoulder and held him.

"Christine." Her name was little more than a shaky breath escaping his lips. His long arms came up to envelop her back and shoulders, pulling her to him even harder, and he lay his unmasked cheek against the crown of her head.

Her muscles relaxed against him, even as she felt his heart thudding away in his chest. It felt too easy, too natural, this embrace, and she realized just how lonely, how starved for human contact she had been of late.

Surely that would also explain the warm tendrils of desire that had begun to curl around her midsection.

They maintained the embrace for some time before Erik murmured, "Oh, Christine, you angelic creature. How am I to bid you farewell a second time?"

He intended to release her, then. She sucked in a breath of surprise, and then she wondered why she was surprised at all; he  _should_  release her, after all. Unless it was not surprise that she felt, but rather something more...wistful.

On impulse, she lifted her head to look at him, and the respective angles of their heads put her lips right in line with his. She froze, drawing in a quivering breath. Her mind instantly replayed every single fantasy, good or bad, that she had experienced in the last eight months regarding those broad lips. Were they as soft and yielding as she remembered?

Their mouths hovered against each other, waiting, as their warm exhalations of breath mingled and interchanged. It would take only the slightest movement for them to touch. She could sense from Erik's hitched breaths, and from the coiled tension in his body, how much he wanted it. Yet, he resisted. Did he, like her, suspect that their story would still be ill-fated? Or was he simply waiting for her permission?

The idea of rewarding him incensed her. She was still so  _angry_  with him, after all of this time, yet that only seemed to fuel the reckless part of her that ached to give in to her craving for touch after so many months of isolation.  _Stop thinking_ , her body urged.  _Stop thinking and give in_.

She swallowed. The simple action forced her lips closed, causing an inadvertent brush against his mouth. The contact sent a shock rippling through her, all the way down to her toes, and he emitted a small gasp. There would be no coming back from this, she thought.

Suddenly, there came a hard knock at the door that sent them both clambering apart.

Christine had pulled away out of embarrassment, so it was only when she saw Erik's tense and alert stance that she realized the threat inherent in the knock. He slipped a hand inside his tailcoat as he edged closer to the door, no doubt to ready the Punjab lasso. She stood stock still, waiting, willing her legs not to tremble.

Finally, he completed his silent prowl and leaned forward to peer through the peephole. At once, his shoulders relaxed and he drew back. "Leave the linens outside the door and go," he said loudly. "I have requested no fewer than five times to never be disturbed! One more infraction, and your superiors shall hear from me again."

Christine heard a muffled "Yes, monsieur" from the opposite side of the door as Erik stepped back and sighed. "Is it really so much to ask for competent staff?" he asked of no one in particular. He looked back at her, and she averted her gaze. She did not want a repeat of what had just transpired between them.

She could feel the heat of his eyes still on her, and it was a long moment before he spoke again. "I will put you up in a hotel until you are able to find a more permanent residence, and then I will draw my pursuers away from the city so that you are left alone. I only request that we wait until evening, when we will have the cover of darkness again."

She nodded her hesitant cooperation. "Good," he said. He crossed over to her in a few easy strides, sleek as a cat, and lifted the abandoned notebook to give to her. "Now, if you would be so kind, I would very much like to know what you have been up to lately."

So she summarized as succinctly as she could, noting how he struggled to keep his face impassive when she mentioned the broken engagement, and again when she disclosed her job. He seemed determined not to comment on her affairs, and she was both impressed and grateful. When she had filled him in, he thanked her and left her alone.

Though the day was long, Christine was surprised to find that it was not awkwardly so. Erik seemed comfortable with their silence and generally left her to her own devices. She mended her stockings and made more bandages for him; she read the book she had been keeping in her satchel; she wrote a vague letter to Meg stating that she had found a new residence and would forward the new address shortly.

Meanwhile, Erik spent much of the time writing. From the occasional folding of paper and pouring of wax she deduced that it was correspondence, which piqued her interest, but she did not think it her business to ask questions. Therefore, she resigned herself to sneaking furtive glances in his direction. She wondered whether he still signed his notes  _O.G._

Lunch and tea both came and went, with Erik providing both. As late afternoon rolled around, their collective restlessness seemed almost a tangible thing, and he took to pacing the room.

Christine could not stop watching him, if only out of the corner of her eye. Everything about him was long and lithe and majestic, and he moved with a breathtaking sensuousness that seemed to come to him effortlessly. No wonder he had entranced her; pair his physical presence with his rapturous singing voice, and the result was spellbinding.

"I do not suppose," he said suddenly, "that you might indulge me in a game of cards?"

She perked up immediately; she and her father had played cards together often. She agreed, and when Erik pulled out two decks for bezique, she took one and helped to set aside the unnecessary cards, numbers two through six. He watched her with an unreadable expression as she began to shuffle the remaining cards, their shape and weight a tactile comfort against her fingers. She wondered when he had ever found the opportunity to play cards with other people.

He was good, of course. His long fingers manipulated the cards so quickly and deftly that he could have thrown the game with sleight of hand and she would have been none the wiser. His plays were swift and calculated, and she constantly felt as though he was always two steps ahead of her. She had gotten in a lot of practice with the game, though, and she held her own. She could tell that he was putting forth effort—perhaps more than he had expected.

In the end, he was still the first to reach one thousand points and win the game. Her own score, however, was nothing to sneeze at. "Well played," he told her. "It was a pleasure to have a worthy opponent. I thank you." He swept up the cards and set to procuring her a small supper.

After dusk fell, Christine gathered up her things and followed Erik back to the roof and down through the neighboring building. They had negotiated her accommodations earlier; he wanted her to have as many comforts as possible, while she was well aware of how much she would stick out among wealthier clientele. Besides, the less she had to rely on his money, the better.

They had finally settled on something mid-range. It was within walking distance of the laundry, too, though she did not tell him that.

Thankfully, he did not push the sewers on her again. Instead he took as many side streets as possible, head angled down and back so that his brimmed hat might obscure his face. She kept the hood of her cloak drawn tightly as well, struggling to keep up with the long, swift strides that sent his black cloak billowing behind him.

He stopped a block away from the hotel. As he turned to face her, he withdrew from his tailcoat a thick wad of crisply folded banknotes that he pressed into her palm. She knew that it would be fruitless to protest the amount, so she tucked the money into her bodice, out of sight. With her luck, she would be mugged the moment she left Erik's company.

"There is enough there to sustain you for some time, should you choose to pursue a different means of employment," he said. "I will be honest: I hope that you do."

She felt her jaw go rigid. Who was he to assume that he had  _any_  right to opine on her life choices, especially now? She was half-tempted to throw the money back at him, but she swallowed her pride, much preferring to keep herself off of the streets.

Her reaction was apparently not lost on him. "I know; it is none of my business. But I can sense that you are lost, and if I wished for nothing else in this life, it would be that you find yourself again." He lifted a broad hand to her face, hesitating there, and then he dropped it again without ever having touched her. "I hope that you have a good life, Christine Daaé," he said.

She felt like she should say something. She could not speak, of course, but even so, she struggled to get a hold on how she felt about this parting. Finally, she gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment.

His expression sank into one of resignation. "Farewell, angel," he said, his voice thick. With a broad sweep of his cloak, the Phantom disappeared into the night.

* * *

Christine returned to the laundry the next day. She had not yet decided what to pursue instead, if anything, and she could not put herself out of a job in the meantime.

Her next several days were consumed by thoughts of Erik: whether he had, in fact, returned to her apartment for the body; where he would go next; how fiercely he had wrapped his arms around her when she had embraced him; whether she should have done something different at their parting. She was more shaken by the reunion than she would have cared to admit.

Otherwise, life went on as usual. She came home exhausted and grimy every evening. Her knuckles continued to crack and bleed. The man from the butcher shop continued to ogle her from his stoop, occasionally lobbing inappropriate quips in her direction. As long as he did not touch her, though, she could manage to stomach it. She once even smiled at the thought of what Erik might do to the man if he were there, but she quickly and guiltily shoved that thought away.  _How morbid_ , she chastised herself.

It came to a head after a week or so, when one of the other women told her that there was a man asking for her outside the shop. She stayed in the back room late that evening, hoping that he would lose interest and leave, and was pleased to find the storefront unoccupied when she emerged.

The next day, however, the problem returned. "That man is asking for you again," said her coworker at the end of their long shift. Exasperated, Christine peeled off her apron and pulled on her cloak, this time prepared to face the issue head-on. If she could not get through to him with gestures, then at least she could walk to the police station two blocks away. Certainly he would understand  _that_.

But he was not outside the laundry when she got there. Instead, there was a different man leaning against the facade of the building, hands tucked casually inside his pockets. She knew him, but she could not place him. He gave her an unnerving smile when he spotted her, and then she realized: he was the shorter, stockier one of the two Italians who had followed her into her apartment.

" _Buonasera_ ," he said, his grin becoming even toothier.

She hesitated for only a second, and then she spun around to run back inside. As she did so, however, she found herself face-to-face with another, taller, dark-haired man who pushed aside his tailcoat to show her the pistol at his waist.

"He does not speak French," said the stocky man from behind her, "but you understand his meaning, no? I must ask you to come with us."

Slowly, reluctantly, Christine nodded. The men flanked her on either side and led her away from the laundry, many blocks to the north, until finally they reached a quieter area where they pulled her into an alleyway. The stocky one produced a length of rope and began to bind her wrists. "I do not enjoy this," he said, "but we cannot have you knowing our location, hmm?" Then they blindfolded and gagged her, and she was slung unceremoniously over the taller man's shoulder.

The rest of the trip was uncomfortable, and terrifying, and humiliating. Hot tears fell freely from her eyes, soaking the blindfold. How had they found her?  _Why_  had they found her? And what did they plan to do with her now that they had?

She knew that they were close when she heard the creak of a door opening, and when the sound of the men's boots on the ground spoke of wood instead of pavement. She began to hear exchanges of Italian in the distance. She was carried down a set of stairs—to a cellar, perhaps?—and then she was finally set back down on her feet. The blindfold and gag were removed, and she gasped when her eyes adjusted.

She recognized the man before her: lanky build, tan skin, clean-shaven face and dark hair. He leered at her once again, but his eyes were not smiling.

"Hello, signorina."


	5. Shear

Christine's stomach bottomed out at the sight of the man before her. He was  _dead_. She had watched him die, and she had sat in the room with his lifeless body.

Yet here he was before her, in a small, stone-walled room, and he was decidedly  _not_  dead.

He looked to the two men on either side of her. "Leave us," he said, and they dispersed. Then he tilted his head in mock concern. "You look as though you have seen a ghost, signorina."

She scanned his figure, thinking that perhaps she had mistaken him for a similar-looking man. But no, all of the signs were there: brown trousers, held up by suspenders, that looked too big for his bony legs; a pale and dingy striped shirt; an open brown jacket and flat cap; sunken cheekbones and dark hair. But most telling were the eyes: dark and so cold, even colder than she remembered.

She found herself looking for the telltale marks of garrotting wire around his neck, but the shirt collar obscured much of his skin. How could he have survived such a violent strangulation? Her hand came up to rest at the base of her throat, seemingly of its own volition.

"Ah," he said, and he unbuttoned his collar to fully expose the flesh beneath it: tan, sinewy, and completely unmarked. "You imagine me to have died by the noose of our evasive masked friend. Sadly for both of us, it was my twin brother who met that end." He fixed her with a mirthless, thin-lipped smile. "Sad for me, of course, because he was of my own flesh and blood. Sad for you because he was the nicer of the two of us."

A chill crept its way up her spine.

He drew closer until he was an arm's length away. His movements were easy and unhurried, but his eyes were alert, and there was something in the set of his jaw that reminded her of Erik: a restrained ferocity that could potentially devastate when unleashed.

"My brother," he continued, "he was very good at tracking people. Very patient. I can be patient, too, but not in this way. So when I ask you now to tell me where the masked man is, I must stress how very important it is that you do not make me ask a second time."

Her hands were trembling now. She shook her head fervently and tapped at her throat, opening her mouth to mimic speech.

"You have no voice?" he interpreted, and she nodded. "I see. You will forgive me, of course, if I express some doubts. It seems a terribly convenient affliction for you to have in this moment. But there is an easy way to find out whether you are lying."

Without a moment's hesitation, he grabbed her left hand and shoved her pinky finger back with such force that she both heard and felt the resulting  _crack_. The pain was blinding, unlike anything she had ever experienced, and she collapsed to the cold stone floor in silent agony.

He looked on in mild surprise. "Ah, well, I have been wrong before," he said with a shrug. " _Un momento_ , signorina." He disappeared through the heavy wooden door behind her.

The room was otherwise empty. With her feet planted against the floor, Christine pushed herself backward until her spine came to rest against a wall, and then she set her bound hands in her lap and bit her lip, hard, against the torturous throbbing that radiated from the base of her little finger.

When the man returned, it was with paper and pen that he handed to her. "I must still ask you for an answer," he said firmly.

She took the materials with her unbroken hand, still shaking. She did not know where Erik was, of course, but not knowing did not seem a viable option with this man. So instead, she focused on what she  _did_  know. She wrote the name of his hotel, noting that she had last seen him in a room on the top floor, and she indicated his plans to draw his pursuers away from the city. She felt terribly guilty as she wrote, but guilt was no match for her fear in that moment. Besides, had he not evaded capture multiple times now? Surely he could do it again.

Her captor looked over the page that she handed back to him, and he let out a small and condescending sigh. "I admit," he said, "I had hoped for more." He squatted down so that he was at her eye level, resting bony elbows on bony knees. He leered again, and she could see that several of his teeth were missing; even more were tinged brownish-black at the gumline.

"They call me  _il Gatto_ , signorina, and do you know why?" His breath was so foul that she could barely manage to breathe, let alone react to his words. He did not seem to mind. "It is because I enjoy toying with my prey long before I kill it," he answered. He tapped the page with the pen. "Now. Are you certain that there is nothing you are forgetting?"

She nodded forcefully, willing him to believe her. "Very well," he said, and he stood once more. "Let us hope that this puts us on a better trail than the false ones that have been laid out for us."

He walked out without another word, slamming the heavy door behind him. Christine lay her head back against the wall and, not for the first time that week, nor likely the last, let her body succumb to a series of silent, aching sobs.

She simultaneously loathed Erik and longed for him to be there. She had experienced a similarly confusing mix of feelings in the weeks after he released her from his lair, and though time ought to have eased the sting of resentment, hers had only increased with the loss of her voice and the end of her engagement. Because if not to strengthen her bond with Raoul, and if not to propel her singing career, then what had it all been  _for_?

As her emotional anguish began to subside, physical discomfort took over. Her finger was still cripplingly painful; it was already tinged a bluish-purple and had swelled to twice its normal size. The stone floor and wall were uncomfortable, and she was hungry and cold and exhausted.

Christine was alone for at least half an hour before a different man, short and mustachioed, brought her a mug of wine and a tin plate containing a heel of bread and one scrawny carrot. He would return later to take her to the facilities, he said.

The wine was different from what she was used to: more acidic, and earthier somehow; she supposed it was Italian. She did not dislike it, though, and she drank it quickly in hopes that it would ease the pain in her hand. The food vanished just as fast. Then she sat back and reflected on the present situation.

Everything was still awful, but it was easier to face with food and alcohol in her belly.  _Erik will find me before they find him_ , she thought, and then she wondered why she should feel so confident about that. There were easily a hundred reasons why he would not come for her, starting with the basic fact that he likely did not know she was there, and he would be outnumbered and disadvantaged even if he did.

Hope was all she had in that moment, however, and she would cling to it, no matter how foolish, if it meant her survival in the meantime.

After the mustachioed man led her to the washroom and back—a challenge in itself, with her bound wrists and injured finger—he handed her a scratchy blanket, as well as a cloth sack filled with straw that she assumed was meant to be a pillow. Neither was comfortable, but she relished the opportunity to lie down in relative warmth. Soon, aided by the wine and the day's trauma, she was able to fall into a restless sleep.

* * *

Christine was left alone to rest until the following morning, when the taller of her two kidnappers—the non-French speaker—came to deliver breakfast, which she was delighted to find included a cup of strong coffee. As she ate and drank, she stretched her sore muscles and examined her ever-throbbing finger. It was nauseatingly purple and crooked.

She was awkwardly escorted to the bathroom again, this time in the light. Just past her little cell, on the way to the stairs, was a wine cellar; most of its several dozen bottles were covered in dust. The stairs took her up to a kitchen that smelled strongly of salted fish, and as she ducked into the washroom around the corner she saw what appeared to be a sitting-room. By all accounts, this seemed to be an ordinary house.

_Il Gatto_ was waiting for her outside the washroom door. "Allow me to escort you, signorina," he said, all too graciously. He gestured for her to lead the way back downstairs, and it was not long before his ulterior motive surfaced.

"We were unable to find the masked man at the hotel you gave us," he announced as they reentered her cell. She avoided his gaze, and her heart hammered so wildly against the confines of her chest that she thought she might pass out. Then, he added, "There was evidence that he was there at one time, however." She released a rush of air from her lungs. "His trail pointed to Rouen, but as it is likely a trick, we will not be pursuing him further."

At this, she whipped her head up to look at him. Dare she hope for her freedom? But no; his eyes, flinty and scheming, told her otherwise.

"I know who you are, Christine Daaé," he said, "and I do believe that you can bring the masked man to  _us_."

_Who is 'us'?_  she wanted to scream. Who was behind all of this, and to what end?

"We think that he is doubling back, checking to see whether we have taken his bait. So now we send him a message of sorts, telling him that you are here, and I have every reason to believe that he will come for you." He turned to shut the door, closing himself in the room with her, and her pulse picked up again.

She had already backed herself into the corner by the time he advanced on her. There was nowhere else for her to go.

"I had hoped to cut off your pinky fingers to send to our friend," he said, "but alas, I am told that I must not harm you for the time being. There are, however, other ways I can think of to incense him." It was unsettling how clinical the man remained as he spoke. "On your knees, signorina."

She stared at him in wide-eyed horror. Her ears took in his words, but her brain could not process them.

"I  _said_  on your knees," he repeated, and he moved to deliver a swift kick to the backs of her legs so that they buckled beneath her. Her kneecaps collided painfully with the stone floor as she lurched forward, barely able to break her fall with bound wrists. The resulting pain that seared through her left hand was so intense that she nearly vomited.

He moved in closer until she was at eye level with his waistband, and she nearly gagged out of fear and revulsion. Then he grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking it upward so fiercely that she gasped. Oh, God, her scalp was on  _fire_. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she could not have said how long ago they had started. Had she been able to plead and whimper, she would have. Readily.

There was a tenuous moment in which Christine held perfectly still, avoiding further agony, waiting for his next move. She saw a hand reach into his trouser pocket and withdraw something glinting. There came a soft, elongated  _snip_  from above, followed by a release of some of the tension at her scalp.

Her hair. He was cutting off her hair.

She would have been able to handle the loss of a ringlet or two, but he did not stop at that; he hacked at her long tresses with abandon. No, this was clearly meant to be a shearing. And as she watched the soft tendrils floating down in her periphery like curls of brown ash, a shearing was exactly what it felt like: the last of her dignity, of everything that had made her feel warm and safe in this world, being stripped away. The tears continued to fall until her eyes were so painfully dry that they could not produce any more.

Finally, she heard the shears closing. He chuckled as he gathered up the hair that had fallen around her in a downy halo. "Ah, if only we could see his face when he stumbles upon this, no?  _Buongiorno,_ signorina, and I will see you later."

He left without another word.

Still kneeling on the hard floor, Christine lifted a hand to touch what remained of her hair. There was still a soft mop of curls there, but only a few inches' worth, and certainly nothing befitting a woman.

She tried to reason with herself: after all, there was so much worse that he could have done. But the shame persisted, until finally she curled into a ball on her sparse bedding and retreated into herself.

* * *

They cut her bonds that night, on account of her good behavior. They also brought her what little reading material they had: newspapers, mostly, and some sort of cheap-looking Italian novel. She even appealed to the mustachioed man for materials with which to splint her finger, and was pleasantly surprised when he returned with a small piece of wood and some thin scraps of cloth. The other men were not as heartless as  _il Gatto,_ she was learning. Still, they would not reveal their names, their origin, or their purpose.

The confined solitude was maddening, and Christine wished desperately that she could sing. Instead, she ran through, in her mind, the lyrics to every song that she could think of. "The Point of No Return" came up sooner than she would have cared to admit. She wondered whether Erik ever thought of it, ever sang it, or whether out of self-preservation he had blocked out all memory of that fateful production.

At some point she decided to remove her boots and let her poor feet stretch and air out, and as she did so, the knife that she kept tucked in the right boot came clattering out onto the floor. She gasped and snatched it up, tossing it back into the boot lest anyone come to investigate the noise. Never having used the blade before, she had forgotten about it entirely.

What good would it serve her now, though? Even if she took one man by surprise, she could not feasibly take out all of the men in this house, nor did she  _want_  to. There was not a single killing bone in her body. So she kept the knife tucked safely away, occasionally reminding herself of its availability, just in case.

It was another two days before  _il Gatto_  returned, and he did so to inform her that the men believed their "message" to have been intercepted by the masked man, and that it should only be a matter of time before his arrival. The lanky man's otherwise flat voice was laced with what she could have only described as villainous glee. She could not respond, of course, but she did not even turn to look at him as he spoke, prompting him to cluck his tongue. "Ah, signorina, are you still upset over the loss of your hair? Vanity is unbecoming in a woman, you know. In that sense, you might say that I did you a favor."

There was a sudden crack in the numbness that had solidified within her these past forty-eight hours, and she felt the first stirrings of anger in her belly. Oh, how she hated this man.

"I have brought something to show you," he continued. "I thought you might like to see what I intend to use on our masked friend when he is captured."

She did not want to look, but she  _needed_  to look. She remained where she sat on her blanket but rotated 180 degrees to face him. He was perched on a stool that he had apparently brought in for the occasion, and a handled wooden box sat on the floor at his side. His dark eyes shone when he realized that he had her attention. "Yes, yes, good. It will give me great pleasure to share my tools with you. It has been too long since they have been put to good use."

He unlatched the box and pushed back its hinged lid. From within, he pulled out a pair of metal pliers. "I often start with this," he said, holding it up for her to see. "Such a simple tool, but capable of so much agony. It is excellent for removing all of one's teeth, for example. Or I heat it until the tips are red-hot, and then one by one I rip the nail from each finger and toe."

Christine swallowed the bile that began to rise in her throat. She was not surprised by his penchant for torture, but neither had she quite imagined the scope of his "talents."

Next he showed her a knife whose blade, no longer than perhaps the palm of his hand, had an unusual curve at its tip. "Now this," he said, "I am particularly keen to use on our masked friend. He has a twisted face on one side, no?" She did not confirm this, but she supposed that the unchecked surprise on her face gave her away.

"This kind of knife," he continued, "has been used for centuries to slowly peel away the flesh, leaving the muscle whole and exposed. The body can withstand this for many hours, and in some cases up to several days. Fascinating, is it not?" He did not seem to notice or care when she continued to regard him with abject horror. "How satisfying it would be to carve out the untouched side of our friend's face so that it might match the other half."

He returned the knife to the box. "The first instrument of his torture, however, will be the spilling of your blood. I wish I could say that it would be your screams—that is more poetic, no?—but we both know that to be impossible." At this, he looked up at her and smiled.

She was too stunned to think, to feel, to react. Perhaps her jaw fell open, or tremors racked her body, or her mouth went bone-dry; in that moment, she could not say. The room briefly spun around her and blurred into a fog.

He was still looking at her when he came back into focus. "You did not think that we could let you go, signorina, did you? Not after you have seen and heard so much."

There was a knock at the door. "Ah, excuse me," he said. He closed his box of tools and lifted it as he stood, adding, "I cannot leave these here, can I?" He gave her a knowing wink. "I will return shortly,  _mia cara_."

Christine watched him step out and close the door, and then she removed the knife from her boot.

As she moved over to the door to wait out the man's return, she was shaken by how little confidence she had in her ability to incapacitate him. But what other choice did she have? She could not rely on Erik to save her; that would not be realistic. If she did not take action now, she essentially condemned herself to death. Perhaps, if she did manage to take out  _il Gatto,_  the others would show her mercy. At the very least, she might save Erik from the man's particular brand of punishment.

Oh, Erik. Flawed as he was, he could never be this cruel. How she ached, now, for his gentle touch, for the expressiveness in his eyes that she had been learning how to decipher.  _Those_  eyes had never been cold, she realized, even when his expression had indicated otherwise.

The door reopened. Knife bared, she swung out from her position against the wall.

She hesitated only a fraction of a second, just to make sure that it was him. She could not have lived with herself had it been anyone else. That fraction of a second, however, was enough to spell out her doom. His arm shot out like a whip, halting her wrist, twisting it until it hurt and she dropped the blade. With his other hand he delivered a swift backhand to one side of her face, and she went sprawling.

Again he clucked his tongue in the way that she had come to despise. "And here I was coming to show you mercy, signorina." He picked up the knife, looking it over. "How did you come by this, you clever girl?" He stuck his head out the door, clearly not expecting an answer, and called out something in Italian before addressing her again. "I am afraid that we must bind your wrists again, in light of this new development."

A moment later, the mustachioed man had brought down a length of rope, and  _il Gatto_ had him tie her wrists while he watched impassively from the corner, twisting the hilt of her knife between his fingers. When the two of them were left alone again, he produced her former blindfold from his pocket.

"The next time I see you will be when I return to kill you," he said, matter-of-factly. "Since you have been so helpful, I was willing to blindfold you again, so that you would not see it coming. But now, I am not so sure." He made a show of debating his options, then smirked and dropped her knife onto the floor. "I tell you what: I will still blindfold you. But I will use your own knife, and let it wait for me here."

He advanced on her then, lifting her bound wrists over her head and shoving them against the wall, where they remained even when he let go. There was an iron hook up there, she recalled, and she had not known until now what it was for.

Finally, he wrapped the blindfold snugly around her head. "I am sorry that you have had to endure such suffering on behalf of your masked friend," he told her as he knotted the cloth, "but he has made a powerful enemy for himself and will be hunted at all costs. You, signorina, appear to be his weakness, so it was only a matter of time before you got caught up in this web, no?"

Two thin, wet lips pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she tried not to dry heave. "I will see you soon,  _mia cara_ ," he whispered. She heard him cross the room, and the door slammed shut.

She could not say how long she stood there, arms tied overhead, blindly waiting for either death or rescue. For all she knew, it was somewhere between half an hour and half a day. Her muscles were coiled so tightly that they felt as though they might never unknot again. She leaned against the cold wall at her back, wishing that she could just sink into it.

Eventually, the door creaked open. Several seconds of silence followed. Then there came a scrape of boots against stone, and next, the sound that she was most terrified to hear: the scrape of metal against stone. Her knife.

The way her body trembled in response seemed almost inhuman. As the footsteps grew closer, she said a prayer in her head.

A pair of hands blanketed her own, as though to still their shaking. She knew those hands: cool and callused, tender and expressive despite their strength. At once, tears of relief pricked her eyes.

The hands pulled her bindings off of the wall hook, lowering her sore wrists and removing the ropes that held them. They traveled up her arms to her shoulders, where they paused and held fast as if confirming her physical presence. Then, they trailed up the back of her neck to find the tie of the blindfold.

Wide palms cupped the base of her head as agile fingers loosed the knot. Quick, warm breaths kissed her forehead. When at last the knot came undone, the blindfold fell away from her face, leaving her to lock eyes with the man who had both devastated and saved her life.

Never had she been so glad to see him.

Both the brown eye and the ice-blue one were glassy. "Oh, Christine." His voice cracked on her name, and he gestured to the injured hand with its makeshift splint. "Did they do this?"

She nodded. His jaw hardened, and there was a low rumble in the back of his throat, almost a growl. He snaked his fingers through her mess of uneven curls and pressed the unmasked part of his forehead to hers. "I am resisting the impulse to smash every bottle in the neighboring room," he murmured, "because I will not leave you for another second." After a pause, he added, "It would also be a tragic waste of perfectly good wine."

She threw her arms around his neck.

He sighed, moving his arms to pull her in tightly, and then with practiced ease he lifted her off the floor. She did not let go. She would not, not for a very long time.

"I have attempted to honor your request of me," he said on their way up the stairs. "You will be pleased to note that the others are locked in a broom closet, unconscious but alive." A pause. "Save one."

She snapped her head up to look at him, and his expression faltered. "Do not look at me like that, Christine. You can hardly know the extent of my rage once I found out they had taken you. And to see your hair—" His voice quavered, and he stopped, turning his face away just enough that she could see only the smooth, white surface of the mask.

He cleared his throat as he made his way through the now-quiet house. "I recommend that you do not look to my left, my dear. You will not like what you see."

But she had to look. She had to know, and she could easily cast her gaze in that direction without him even knowing she had done it. When she thought he was distracted enough, she let her eyes flit in that direction. She could just make out a pair of long, thin legs sprawled across the floor. What had once been a light-colored shirt was now matted with blood. And there, protruding from the center of that bloodstained torso, was a pair of metal shears.

* * *

_Next chapter: Christine gets a reprieve. I promise!_


	6. Reprieve

It was dark when they escaped the house.

Erik carried Christine to the doors of a waiting coach and set her on one of the seats, and then he slid in opposite her and thumped his palm twice against the front of the vestibule. The cab lurched into motion.

For several minutes, he watched her without a word. His jaw was tight, and there was a wildness in his eyes that was unfamiliar to her: it spoke not of violence, but of fear.

When he did address her, however, his voice was as steady and silken as ever. "We have much to discuss," he said, "and quick decisions to be made. But first I must ask you: did they harm you in any other way?" His broad hands, usually splayed and expressive, were balled into fists in his lap, as though he was steeling himself for her response.

_Yes, irrevocably_ , she wanted to say, but she knew that he meant physical harm. She pointed to her cheek, which still bore the sting of  _il Gatto's_ backhand.

"They hit you?" he clarified, and she nodded, holding up her index finger: one time. He growled softly. She could practically feel the anger rippling off of him, but then she felt him rein it in, too, before it had a chance to boil over.

"Anything else?" He looked at her probingly, and she knew what he was asking: had they violated her in any way? The answer was yes, of course they had, but not in the way that he meant. So she shook her head, and Erik exhaled his relief.

"This will never happen again," he said. There was a steely edge to his voice that would have terrified her, had she been anyone else. Right now, however, it was exactly what she needed to hear.

She relished his commanding presence in that moment, the way he seemed to fill the entire carriage, yet she still felt so very exposed on the seat by herself. She longed to press herself against him, to wrap herself in his arms until nothing else existed but their protection. Instead, she distracted herself by looking out the carriage window, trying to determine where they were headed. She could not, however. She was lost, in all ways.

"Christine." His voice was quiet and pleading, and she turned to look at him again. "Surely you know that I cannot turn you loose again after this." She had not thought that far ahead yet, but it made sense and she was too tired to protest in this moment. She nodded.

"They know that as long as they have you, I will come. I do not know how they know, but they do."  _Then turn yourself in_ , she thought,  _and accept the consequences of your actions_. But she knew that she would not have said so even if she could. She did not want him to turn himself in.

"We are left with two options," he continued, "and I leave it to you to decide. We can flee the city, perhaps even the country. But should they follow us—and I believe that they will try—we shall live our lives being hunted." He paused to let his words sink in, and she nodded her understanding. "The second option is the one I would pursue were you not in my company, which is to go directly to the source. Investigate and shut down this pursuit. This would be decidedly more dangerous, but if I were successful, then you would be free to do whatever you wished."

He reached down near his feet and lifted what she had not even noticed was there: her carpet bag. "I retrieved your things from your room. Alas, I could not find your satchel. Perhaps they took it?" She had left it at the laundry, she realized, intending to go back in and fetch it once she dispatched the man whom she had thought was waiting for her outside.

"In the absence of that, I have procured a new notebook," Erik went on, and he withdrew the object from her bag, along with a nib pen. Both of these he handed to her, meeting her gaze as he leaned forward. "Think carefully," he urged. "We will do whatever you choose."

But Christine did not have to think carefully, because she felt it in her gut: she could not go on being hunted like this. It would drive her mad. She scrawled a question onto the paper:  _Where would we go to investigate?_ Then she held up the notebook, and he squinted at it until a passing flicker of light from a streetlamp illuminated her words.

"Rome," he replied instantly. "La Carlotta."

There was a small flutter of excitement in her chest. She missed traveling, as she and her father had often done, and she did so long to see Rome. She imagined traveling with Erik to be especially fulfilling, if one could overlook all of the necessary skulking in the dark; he had seen so much, and knew so much, that he would surely be an excellent guide.

It was unsettling, really, how quickly her discomfort around him was dwindling.

Of course, how much sightseeing could one do when one's life was in mortal peril? But even as her brain tried to argue this point, her gut told her that Erik would go out of his way to appease her. Perhaps they could work out a compromise.

_I do not want to run_ , she wrote, and he nodded. "Good. There is an overnight express train to Rome departing at eight o'clock in the morning. I have already purchased our tickets."

She wondered where he intended for them to pass the time until said departure, but she did not bother asking; she would find out soon enough. She leaned her head against the wall of the vestibule, gazing at the hazy blotches of light that lined the street outside.

In time, her eyes darted back to Erik again. He was watching her, his mouth twitching as though he ached to speak. She caught his gaze and held it, willing him to just come out with whatever it was he wanted to say.

It worked. "I paid a visit to the director of the Royal Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, here in the city," he said. "I have heard of the deaf sometimes using their hands to communicate, and I thought that perhaps the institute might have some resources for you."

She sat up a little straighter. Could such a thing exist? Erik's scowl, however, warned her not to get her hopes up. "The imbecile was quite adamant that the use of hand signs would deter language process; apparently, all of western Europe switched years ago to the exclusive use of oralism. How that could possibly be of any use to a mute is beyond me." He reached into the breast of his tailcoat and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. "After some persuasion, however, he did produce this."

She took the parchment from him, wondering as she opened it what terrifying things could possibly constitute "persuasion" in Erik's mind. The page was edged with a thick border of floral sprays and curlicues, and in the center was an array of drawings. Each was of a hand, in varying positions and with varying finger configurations, and each was labeled with a lowercase letter.

"If you were to at least master the hand signs for the alphabet," he said, "then we could communicate in a pinch. The guide is yours; I have already studied and memorized it."

Christine nodded her thanks and tucked the page into her carpet bag. It was too dark to study the letters now, and she was far too tired, but anything to facilitate her communication would be an immense help, and she was grateful.

The carriage rolled to a stop. As the driver came around to open the door for her, Erik picked up her carpet bag and a second bag that she had not seen, presumably his. They stepped out onto a quiet residential street. Erik paid the driver, and she followed him to the door of an elegant limestone building, where he turned to watch and wait as the man drove off. She looked up at him, questioning.

"I am about to break into this house," he explained, "and I would prefer not to have a witness." He waved away the look of shock that crossed her face. "No one lives here; I found it through an advertisement in the paper for an upcoming estate sale. It was a widower who died, with no other family residing within.

"It is only for one night, Christine," he added testily when she frowned. "Save your moral exactitude for an occasion when we are not in fear for our lives."

When he deemed the cab sufficiently far away, Erik produced and unrolled a bit of cloth containing a small set of strange-looking implements, all the same size and with the same wood handles, but each bearing a metal pick with a uniquely shaped tip. He selected one and discreetly fiddled with the lock until it opened. Then he ushered her in.

The gas lamps brought the interior to life, and it was evident from such details as the red velvet upholstery and the elegant cream-and-gold wallpaper that the tenant had been quite wealthy. Christine followed Erik through various rooms; whether he was assessing their contents or checking for occupants, she could not say. They eventually made their way upstairs, where he assigned her a large bedroom with a built-in bath. "I will stay across the hall," he announced. "Now. Are you hungry, Christine? I have brought food."

She was hungry, and so she nodded, but more than anything she wanted to wash and change. She stepped into the bathroom and was pleased to find a large porcelain tub, which she gestured to emphatically as Erik watched her.

"I doubt that the water will be hot," he said. "You would catch your death."

She shrugged to indicate that it did not matter. She was going to scrub every last remnant of that horrible cellar off of her skin, even if she caught pneumonia and it literally killed her.

She could see his jaw working back and forth. "Fine," he said. "Be quick about it, then." He strode out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him, and she resisted rolling her eyes. She did not need his permission to take a bath, thank you very much, and she would have told him so if she could have.

She started running the water, careful not to look in the mirror at any time. She was not ready to face her reflection, not yet. Gingerly, she removed her skirt and bodice, using her left hand as little as possible. When she reached back to unlace her corset, however, the movement sent such agonizing pain shooting through her finger that she stopped, sinking to the edge of the tub in defeat. She had half a mind to cut the thing off, if she only had her knife. She would need to ask Erik about that.

She tried once more to unlace the corset, this time with only one hand. She made some progress, but it was an awful, herculean task and she was just too tired for that sort of nonsense. With a hefty swallow of her pride, she went to find Erik.

He was in his room, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs with his back to the door. His tailcoat and vest lay on the bed. Christine took a moment to appreciate the sheer length of his legs, the broad planes of his shoulders, the strength and confidence inherent in his posture even when he was seemingly alone, and she wondered whether these things would ever cease to impress her. She inhaled perhaps too sharply, and he snapped his head around to where she stood in the door frame in her undergarments.

He stiffened, his mouth falling open without sound. Her cheeks flamed. She pointed to her corset, and she turned her back to him to indicate what she wanted. He remained where he was for several more seconds before darting across the room. "Of course," he breathed as he drew up close to her back. "Your hand. It must be quite painful."

Her spine tingled as his fingers alighted between her shoulder blades to loosen the top laces. She could feel his breath on her neck, on the expanse of soft, exposed skin that had, until this week, usually been obscured by her hair. He worked his way down the corset, and her heart raced alongside the deft movements of his hands.

There came a gradual release of tension as Erik tugged at the last of the laces, and then he placed his hands at her waist to pivot her until she faced him. She momentarily stopped breathing. His eyes bore into hers as his hands hovered at the front fasteners of her corset: a chance, she supposed, to intervene. Perhaps she should have, but she did not. She had apparently forgotten how to move.

Mouth set in a firm line, Erik flicked open the first of the fasteners. Christine felt a churning sort of warmth in her abdomen. He continued downward, quiet and methodical, until the two front panels of the corset separated, at which point he pulled them back and gently removed the garment from her torso. She did not miss how he swallowed and his gaze flicked downward as he handed it to her. Her white chemise clung to her skin where the corset had cinched it, and she supposed that it left little to the imagination.

She should have felt embarrassed—mortified, even—but his reaction filled her with such satisfaction that she briefly considered having him remove her petticoat as well. She had begun to feel inhuman these last several days, and this sudden acknowledgement of her femininity lifted her spirits ever so slightly.

It was a dangerous source of gratification, she realized.

"Anything else?" he asked quietly, with an anxiousness suggesting that he hoped not. She shook her head, offered him a shy smile of thanks, and hurried back to the bathroom.

The water was freezing. It was such a jolt to her system that she let out a prolonged gasp as she lowered herself into it. Her teeth chattered almost immediately and did not stop for the duration of her washing. Still she endured it, scrubbing her skin pink and massaging her scalp in the water until it ached. When at last she felt sufficiently clean, she practically leapt out of the tub to rub herself down with a towel, shaking all the while.

Nightdress and slippers went on next, and then her dressing-gown. It was as she tied her sash that, out of habit, she glanced at the mirror to make sure everything was in place.

She did not recognize the person she saw there. Her hair was cropped so close to her head that there were no true curls left, only waves. The cut was ragged and top-heavy. She could not decide whether she looked like a mannish woman or an effeminate boy, but either way, there was little to no trace of the beauty who had once charmed Paris society with her looks and voice.

She sank to the floor, her back against the tub, and she cried.

As the enormity of what had happened to her came crashing down, she retreated further and further into herself. Her  _self_ : what did that even mean anymore? She had been stripped away of everything— _everything_ —that had forged her identity. There was no music in her life now. She had no family, friends, or fiancé; no voice; no hair; no home. She was no longer a singer or a ballet rat or even a laundress. She had been kidnapped, twice, and subsequently abused and terrorized and degraded. And now! Now she was forced to flee with one of said kidnappers, through no fault of her own! What more could life want from her, and did she even have anything left to give?

She continued to sit there long after she stopped crying. She felt utterly numb. Her limbs were heavy, and she could only stare blankly at the opposite wall.

There came a soft knock at the door. "Christine?"

She should answer it. He would worry. But her muscles remained leaden.

Another knock, louder this time. "Christine Daaé. If you do not immediately provide some indication that you are not going into hypothermic shock, then I shall break down this door."

Still, she could not move. She wondered how long it would take him to realize that she had not actually locked the door. A curious thought, that: despite his vast history of spying and meddling, her subconscious had still concluded that he was not a threat to her privacy.

It must have occurred to him to try the doorknob first. The door swung open and Erik shoved his way in, wild-eyed and tense. He was fully dressed again, apparently having changed into an identical set of clothes. When he saw her, he quickly crossed the room to kneel at her side. "Oh, Christine," he said, peering into her tear-stained face. "What is it?"

Feebly, she reached up and lifted a strand of her damp hair.

His shoulders sank in relief. "Good lord, is that all?" he asked. Stung, she frowned and turned her head away from him.

"I apologize," he said, and he moved to sit against the bathtub next to her. "I do not mean to diminish your loss. I just—" He paused, and in looking at him she once again noticed how odd it was to see him sitting on the floor. She would never get used to the sight. He continued, "I must continue to reassure myself that you are intact because, frankly, the thought of you being harmed on my account makes me want to tear out my still-beating heart."

His anguish was palpable, but some part of her was amused. He did always have a flair for the dramatic, didn't he?

"What you have endured is cruel and unfair, yes. Take it out on me, if you wish; I certainly deserve it." Here he rounded on her, his mask and lips and eyes suddenly so very close. "But do  _not_  disappear," he told her firmly. "Do not give  _him_  that satisfaction, even in death. You are stronger than that."

The reference to  _il Gatto_  sent a chill through her body, but Erik's words surprised her and piqued her interest. She questioned him with a glance.

"Oh, yes," he said, one corner of his mouth drawing up slightly. "You are a survivor, my dear. There is no doubt of that. For better or for worse, we have that in common." He rose to his feet and extended a hand, and she took it.

She mulled over his words as she followed him downstairs to eat in the kitchen. Her instinct was to doubt him, but his claim  _felt_  inherently true. She had tried to kill a man that day, for heaven's sake, and she was not sorry for it.

But perhaps it was even more ingrained than that. Had she not overcome her father's passing by shoehorning her way into one of the most prestigious opera houses in the world? Had she not risen quickly to the role of prima donna? She could not deny Erik's heavy hand in her ascent, of course, but neither could she deny the work that she had put in during the course of their lessons. She had not done that for him; she had done it for herself.

She thought back to when she had been a chorus girl and ballet rat, desperate for something more. Had she really, truly believed that the voice behind her mirror was heaven-sent? Or had her mind simply sought a way to justify putting her trust in an unseen stranger who could help her sing?

She was still thinking about it when they finished eating. She could do this. She could rally and learn the alphabet signs and and see Rome, and she could do it all alongside the man who had once tried to control her. She knew now that she did not have to give him that power. He did not frighten her.

In fact, she realized, he could give her the one thing that she had been craving during these long months alone.

Erik had not spoken during their casual supper, perhaps sensing that her thoughts were elsewhere. He opened his mouth to address her now, but before he could utter a word, she grabbed his wrist.

She led him to the drawing-room, where both of them had stopped earlier to admire its gleaming grand piano. She went so far as to position him at the bench, pushing on his shoulders until he sat with reluctant confusion. "Fine, fine, you want me to play," he said. She nodded, and then she pantomimed by splaying her fingers as though they were bursting forth from her open mouth. "And sing?" he confirmed. She gave him a more enthusiastic nod.

"I confess," he said, with obvious discomfort, "that it has been some time since I have done either." She clasped her hands pleadingly, and he sighed. "I suppose that it might do both of us some good."

Satisfied, she moved to perch on a loveseat where she could watch him. Those expansive hands came up to hover over the keys, and he studied her with a subtle tilt of his head. "What music shall we have this evening, Miss Daaé?" His voice unfurled like silk, cool and slick, and it made her snap to attention. It seemed to her that he gained confidence with every second he spent near the instrument, and he had not even touched it yet. Her heartbeat picked up speed. This was not the version of Erik that she felt she had any sway over.

His ice-blue eye, the one framed by the mask, seemed to pin her fast to her seat as he deliberated, and for a brief moment she wondered whether he could read her mind. "Ah," he said, "I think I know." The corner of his mouth pulled back into a knowing almost-smile, and he spun away from her, back to the ivories.

All it took was one line, one  _single_  line of music in 6/8 time, to steal her breath away. She knew all too well the melody that his limber fingers coaxed from the keys, and she suspected that he was aware of this fact.  _How?_ How could he have come to know this simple Swedish folk song, this subtle tune of romantic devotion and melancholic longing that had been among the earliest of her repertoire?

In an instant, she was transported to her father's side as they huddled in front of the fireplace during a particularly unforgiving winter. It had not been a good year for them as a whole; she wore a dress one size too small and would have been content to never see another potato again. But she had found her singing voice, her father had taught her a dozen new songs, and together they had filled the house with music from morning until night. Their bodies may not have been sated, but their souls were, and that had been an unmatchable feeling.

Until now.

Her eyes began to water, so she closed them, and that was when he began to sing.

She nearly gasped to hear Erik's singing voice again. She had forgotten how it could curl softly around her in one moment, then clench her insides like a vise in the next. Its texture was so velvety that it was easy to overlook how much power and control he wielded masterfully throughout his singing.

His Swedish was quite good, full and throaty, and when he sang the refrain it cut her like a lance.  _Even if I traveled to the end of the world, my heart would call for you_. She could not open her eyes to find out whether he was looking at her in that moment.

By the time he had sung every verse and played the final chord, Christine had practically melted into the sofa. She felt warm and safe and at home, while at the same time utterly unsettled by the return of his bewitching influence over her.

A pair of hands came to rest gently on her shoulders. "Feeling any better, my dear?" Erik murmured. She opened her eyes to find his abdomen right in front of her, solid beneath the tailored cut of his waistcoat. It was easy enough to recall the pale musculature beneath that fabric, and she flushed.

Then his sinuous fingers rose to burrow into her hair, massaging her scalp, combing through the short locks, and she nearly went boneless. "There is something to be said for your newfound lack of hair," he said. "I daresay it makes your eyes brighter, your cheekbones and freckles more pronounced. And your neck…" Here the fingertips of one hand skimmed behind her ear and down the side of her throat, making her shiver with the most delicious tension. "Your neck is so very accessible now," he finally murmured, and his hand hovered at the base of her throat for a moment before he abruptly pulled away.

"To bed, then?" he asked, and he offered a hand to help her up.

She was stunned. Just as she had grown more confident in his presence, so, too, was he becoming more comfortable in hers, it seemed. It was a tenuous balance of power, and in whose direction the scale might tip during the course of their travels—well, that was anyone's guess.

His talk of strength and survival had emboldened her, however. She resolved right then and there that if there was to be a battle for the upper hand, she would be the one to emerge the victor.


	7. Departure

Christine had always been content to sleep alone. Usually it was with at least one other person present in the same dwelling, but even when she had been the sole occupant of the Girys' flat, the nights spent in solitude had not bothered her.

There were two exceptions. First was her initial stay in Raoul's home, when she had spent several sleepless nights half expecting the Opera Ghost to appear in her mirror again. The second was here and now in this strange home somewhere in Paris, where the dark and quiet forced her to recall just how narrowly she had escaped death that day.

She could not unsee her captor's unaffected stare, nor the implements he had held with such perverted tenderness as he described how he would flay a man alive. She could not un- _feel_  the shame of her femininity being stripped away. She could not forget that there were men still out there, in this same city, who would use her for their own ill-gotten gains and then likely do away with her after.

She had been nervous at bedtime, resisting the urge to cling to Erik's arm when he had seen her to her room for the night. It was only now, in the middle of a too-large bed in a too-large room, that she felt truly endangered by the openness of the surrounding space and quiet. It was only now that she realized the extent of her terror, and she was utterly defenseless.

Every fiber of her being cried out for the safety and comfort that she knew Erik could offer, and it made her feel like a child. She had thought herself through with feeling that way in his presence, and the possibility of doing it again filled her with both dread and resentment. She had already left his company feeling like he had won some sort of unspoken battle, and she hated to give him more power over her.

Finally, she sat up in bed and tugged on her slippers and dressing-gown. She had to leave this room. She did not know what she would do once she left, but anything else had to be better than lying in wait. She could only hope to calm her nerves without seeking out Erik, because the thought of going to his bedside and waking him was too daunting.

She opened the door to find him staring straight at her, lips faintly parted in surprise. "Christine."

Oh, how the soft, melodic lilt of her name on his tongue could still whisk her breath away after all of this time.

He had pulled a chair against the wall opposite her door, and he sat in it with one long leg crossed over the other, sharp knees pointed to the sky. After a beat of uncertainty, however, he bolted to his feet. "Is something the matter?"

She hesitated, and he interpreted her ambivalence correctly. "You cannot sleep?" She shook her head, and he added, "Nor I."

They regarded each other in awkward silence, and then she gestured to the chair, questioning. "Forgive me," he said, but he stared down at her with such rigid determination that he was obviously not sorry in the least. "I could not bear to leave you alone after everything that transpired. This was the closest I could manage without being invasive."

Relief flooded her angry muscles. She bit at her lower lip and then stepped back, gesturing for him to enter her room.

His shock was evident as he looked from her face to the empty bedroom, comprehending what it was that she wanted. "Oh, Christine," he said, his voice a sorrowful near-whisper. "You must be utterly terrified."

And then she saw it in his eyes, saw what she had suspected before but continued to deny: that despite everything, he was still in love with her.

Despite everything, it moved her. She began to cry. She scrunched up her face to hold it back, but still the tears slipped down her cheeks, and his face fell into an endearing combination of worry and discomfort. "What is it? Your hair again?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Then tell me."

What could she do? This thing could not remain unspoken between them, not when they were to be in such close quarters for the foreseeable future. She walked back into the room. He stood in wait, a slender tower of darkness in the door frame, while she turned on the gas lamp and rummaged through her things for the notebook.

She moved to sit on the bed, her hands shaking as she wrote. He crossed to seat himself beside her, and her stomach flipped as his weight caused the mattress to sink, tilting her ever so slightly toward him. She hurried to finish her question.

_Do you still have feelings for me?_

At the sight of her words, he sighed. "What would you have me say, Christine? No reply could possibly help the situation in which we find ourselves at present."

_The situation necessitates my need to know._

"Very well," he said, his voice smacking of bitterness. He emitted a low, throaty chuckle. "Does it satisfy you, then, to know that my soul has continued to  _burn_  absent your presence? That this lonesome heart still beats only for you despite months of trying to convince myself otherwise?"

She blinked at him. She had not doubted, by the end of things in his lair, that he had loved her; it had been plain in his face. But she had gone on to spurn him, and to eventually lose all of the things that must have attracted him to her in the first place. It did not make sense that he should still carry a torch for her after all of this time.

He studied her expression carefully. "You are surprised," he observed. "You had doubts as to the depths of my affection?"

She shook her head, tapping the front of her throat with her finger, and his eyes softened.

"I see." The words were quiet but heavy. "You do not understand how I can still love you when you have no voice."

Christine nodded.

"Certainly your voice is what drew me in, when I was convinced that music mattered above all else—damned fool that I was. Your compassion, however, is what tethered me to you."

_I am a different person now_ , she wrote.

"You are," he acknowledged, "and yet you are not. If only you could see, as I do, how worldly you have become, all while retaining such purity of spirit." He inhaled sharply. "Good heavens, Christine, you are more breathtaking than ever."

And then she was crying again. He had always had a way with words, a certain seductive power to make her bend to his will, but this utterance felt sincere.

He offered her a handkerchief, and she took it. "You need not worry," he said. "I will keep my admiration to myself, with no further unwanted advances. All I ask is that you allow me to do what is necessary to keep you safe."

She dabbed at her eyes and nodded, even as pangs of doubt set in. She knew Erik as a man whose feelings ran deep and passionate, and she wondered whether he could he truly suppress them without consequence, even in light of his apparent character transformation.

"Christine." Her name on his lips, imploring and tender, lured her back to the present. "Tell me: what would make you feel safe in this moment?"

She swallowed and reached for the notebook.  _I cannot ask it of you._

He read her reply and, without missing a beat, said, "You want me to stay in your room."

Hesitantly, she nodded.

"It is done. Go back to bed, my dear." Without delay, he arranged himself in a delicate armchair on the opposite end of the room.

Christine regarded him for a moment. She had little doubt that he fully intended to keep watch for the night, and the idea was patently ridiculous. She collected a spare pillow as well as the extra quilt folded at the foot of the bed, and she carried the bedding over to him.

"Unnecessary," he stated. "I need so little sleep, Christine. Do not concern yourself over me."

She frowned with a solemnity to suggest that it was not up for discussion, and then she forced the items into his arms and pointed to an area on the carpet where he might lie.

He pursed his lips and stood. "Fine."

She returned to the bedside, quickly discarding slippers and dressing-gown before she slid under the covers. She could not help but watch as Erik removed his shoes, tailcoat, cravat, and vest before stacking them neatly atop the chair. The scarceness of his remaining attire further emphasized his slenderness of waist and hip, and when he lay down, the quilt was not long enough to fully cover his frame, leaving his black-stockinged feet and ankles to stick out at the bottom. It was at once both endearingly awkward and strangely intimate. With a slight flush to her cheeks, Christine pulled the covers up to her chin and turned away from him to dim the lamp.

The room was cast into shadow once more, but the darkness was far less ominous now. She sank into the mattress, and the tension that had been coiled in her back and shoulders began to unfurl.

"Goodnight, Christine," that silvery voice called into the blackness. It reached her as an invisible caress, filling the pit of her stomach with an easy warmth, and she smiled into the pillow as she finally welcomed sleep.

* * *

She woke to Erik saying her name again, this time from the doorway. It was still dark, and she squinted at the imposing silhouette afforded by his cloak and hat. "Time to wake," he informed her. "We have neighbors to evade and a train to board." She wondered whether he had actually slept.

She dressed quickly, but only after making another awkward appeal to Erik for assistance with her corset. She was not sure how many more times she could stomach that anxiety-ridden combination of mutual embarrassment and longing.

She emerged from the washroom to find that Erik had already made the bed, erasing all evidence of their stay. She graciously accepted the small breakfast that he offered, and then she donned her hooded cloak while he wrapped a black wool scarf around the lower half of his face and mask. With his head tilted just so, the brim of his hat eclipsed all remaining facial features.

The same driver was waiting for them in the street. Christine assumed that Erik must have arranged for his return so as not to risk hiring a new cab that morning, and that he must be paying the man quite handsomely for his services and discretion.

In the carriage, he outlined their plan of action. "When we disembark," he said, "you must hold my hand until we are safely in our train compartment. If anyone asks, we are Yves and Marie Dupont, husband and wife, and we are going to visit our friends in the city."

If anyone asked, she would not be able to respond, but she refrained from pointing this out. It was clear from the tension lining his jaw and shoulders that he was not in good humor this morning. She was not at her best, either; traumatic events of the previous day aside, she had not had her usual cup of coffee, and her brain was still foggy.

The driver dropped them off in front of the  _Gare de Lyon._ Erik helped her out of the cab with an upturned palm, and she placed her gloved hand into his, watching as black kid leather enveloped bone-white cotton. His grip as he led her through the train station was firm. It did not hurt, but it would take more than a passing jostle to loose her from his hold.

To her immense relief, they boarded the train without incident. Not unintentionally, Erik had them arriving at the platform just before departure, and they could not have managed a delay.

He had booked them a first-class compartment, and though it was relatively small and sparsely decorated, it was still elegant, comfortable, and—most importantly—private. There were two wide, cushioned seats with high backs that formed the headboards of two beds on the opposite side. The mattresses may have been separate, but they were awfully close together.

She looked up from the beds to find him watching her as he unraveled his scarf, his expression inscrutable. "I realize that this is perhaps too intimate," he said, "but I could not risk separate compartments."

Christine nodded her understanding. She did not mind, not really, not after the ease of sleep that had resulted from his presence the night before.

She set down her carpet bag and removed her cloak, and then she sat at a window seat to watch the people milling about on the train platform as the steam engine hissed to life. She would not tell Erik as much, but there was excitement bubbling up in her breast. Paris held so little for her now, but Italy? Italy was a land of sea and mountain, art and architecture, promise and opportunity. And, quite frankly, there was an easy relief that came with the knowledge that she need not concern herself with the source of her next meal.

As for her travel companion, she had to admit that she did not mind his company. She glanced over at his tall figure as he removed his hat and cloak, inadvertently catching his eye. "Perhaps," he told her, "you ought to move away from the window until we have pulled away from the station."

She sighed and cast one final glance at the platform as the train began to move. She had still not forgiven Erik in her mind, which would surely complicate things later, but she felt strangely at ease in this moment.

That was, until she caught a glimpse of a familiar mustachioed face.

Her former captor was scanning the platform. Her insides seized up with panic; she knew that she should move, but she could not take her eyes off of him.

"Did you hear me, Christine?" Erik appeared in her periphery, and she grabbed his wrist, pointing to their pursuer across the way. At that exact moment, the man's eyes flicked up to her window. The sudden urgency in his expression confirmed her fear, and then he broke into a run toward the front of the train.

"Damnation," she heard Erik mutter, and then he barked a command, louder this time. "Watch him, Christine." Though she did as she was told, she kept sneaking glances at Erik as he bolted the compartment door and dragged a heavy armchair to the center of the room.

The train picked up speed. So did the mustachioed man. Erik leapt onto the chair and reached up to pound his fist against what appeared to be a small metal hatchway in the roof, and it opened with a creak and a whoosh of air. Seemingly satisfied, he jumped down and extracted the Punjab lasso from his jacket as he returned to her side.

"Has he made it to the door?" he asked. She shook her head and pointed out the man, who was just now reaching the end of the platform. He stopped, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. Though she could not forget his leniency during her captivity, she would also never forget the anger that burned in his eyes as he watched their car pass. It was anger that spoke of intent. Of vengeance.

"If he is smart," Erik said beside her, "he will wire Rome and have us intercepted at the station tomorrow evening." She snapped her head to look at him, wide-eyed with fear, but he stared back with only cool determination. "We will disembark in Florence instead."

He tucked the lasso into his tailcoat and got up to close the hatch. She pointed to it questioningly as he stepped down from the chair; had he truly intended for them to climb up on the roof? "Worst-case scenario," he explained. "It would not be the first time I've had to jump from a moving train."

He pushed the armchair back to its original location and began to pace the room, which provided only enough length for a few of his long-legged strides. "They likely had a man posted at every train platform in the city," he said, but it was not clear that he was talking to her specifically. "This kind of dogged pursuit—it requires resources. Money. With every passing second I become less convinced that there is a prima donna pulling the strings."

He rounded on Christine. "Does she have any significant connections that you know of? A wealthy patron, perhaps?" She could only offer him an apologetic shrug, and he turned away with a grunt of exasperation to lean against the opposite wall, his weight resting on the arm poised over his head.

For several minutes, he was quiet in thought. When he straightened and faced her once more, his expression was much colder, his eyes flinty. "And what of our foppish former patron of the Opera Populaire? He has both the funds and the motive to put a price on my head."

Her eyes widened at the implication. Surely he could not believe Raoul capable of such treachery, not when her own safety was compromised! But then, Erik had always believed the worst of her fiancé, and readily. She gave him an emphatic shake of her head, coupled with an angry glare.

To her surprise, his jaw slackened. "No, you are probably right," he conceded. "He is not clever enough to execute such a scheme. We know how spectacularly he failed last time." She narrowed her eyes, but his gaze was focused on the passing scenery as the locomotive trundled across a bridge over the Seine.

"One thing is certain," he said. "We must find a way to conceal ourselves. They will be looking for a masked man and a short-haired woman, and we will stand out to anyone who sees us disembark." He surveyed the room as though a solution would present itself in the furniture or the drapes, and then he exhaled, the nose-holes of his mask whistling softly once again. "I will rely on my scarf for the time being, and I suppose that your hood will have to suffice where your hair is concerned."

Christine was not thrilled with the idea. The hood of her cloak would be easily swept away by a gust of wind, and its blue color stood out far more than something more traditionally neutral. In this moment of escape and new beginnings, she almost wished that she could forge an entirely new persona instead.

She stilled suddenly, the skin on the back of her neck prickling with frenzied inspiration. What if she  _could_ , in fact, create a new identity?

With a fresh burst of energy, she crossed the room and opened her carpet bag. She had already begun extracting the notebook when she stopped, slid it back in, and pulled out the page of alphabet signs instead. Erik watched her throughout, his curiosity evident as she returned to perch on the window seat so that she faced him. She took a deep breath and began to replicate the letters that she meant to convey.

_B._ Simple enough: hand straight up, fingers flush against one another, thumb across the palm.  _O_ , thumb and fingers curled inward to form a ring. Easy.  _Y._ Thumb and little finger pointed up; middle three fingers folded down.

"Boy?" he asked, frowning uncertainly. She nodded, pointing to her chest, and then she tugged at her short hair for emphasis. His mouth fell open, and his eyes frantically searched her face. "You cannot possibly be suggesting what I think you are suggesting," he said. Another nod, more enthusiastic this time. "Christine! We are not so condemned that you need even  _consider_  dressing as a boy, for God's sake! What utter nonsense."

She frowned. She had thought it a brilliant idea, and his reaction stung. As if sensing her disappointment, his face softened. "Do not mistake me," he said. "It would be a clever ruse. But I simply cannot have you debasing yourself any further on my account."

At this, she could not help but smile. Now she did go and pull the notebook from her bag, and when she returned to the window to write to him, she was still smiling.

_You see it as debasement_ , she wrote,  _but I see it as freedom_.

Indeed, the moment she had conceived the idea, her mind had started churning out all of its possible advantages. To start, it was a far better disguise than anything else she could think of. She and Erik could travel without their relationship status being questioned. She could wear simpler, less restrictive clothing that would not be such a burden on her broken finger. She was less likely to be taken advantage of. And more than anything, she would not have be perpetually embarrassed by her lack of hair and voice; they would not be held against her.

Was it scandalous? Possibly. But history and literature were rife with heroines impersonating men—Viola, Rosalind, Joan of Arc—and she would hardly be the first to do it.

Erik's eyes flicked from her to the page and then back up to her face again. "You truly want to do this," he said. It was not a question, but rather a statement of dry resignation.

_Yes_ , she wrote, and then she underlined the word for emphasis.

He let out a small sigh. "I admit, it would be incredibly effective if you were to pull it off."

She beamed up at him, eyes pleading, and watched the last of his resolve melt away. "We had best address the issue of your clothing, then," he said. "We have until lunchtime tomorrow."


	8. Baggage

"So, my dear," Erik said, "how did you intend to outfit yourself in boys' clothing?"

Christine had admittedly not thought that far ahead, and she responded with a blank stare. His resulting chuckle was low and soft, sending a shock of warmth to her insides. "Well, then. Absent your input, I would suggest that we raid the luggage car tonight, when most everybody is asleep. That is, if your delicate moral code can withstand the thievery."

His eyes were bright; he was teasing her, she realized. The warmth continued to spread through her limbs, even as the thought of stealing did, in fact, cause a pang of anxiety. With some hesitation, she nodded her agreement. This was for her own safety, after all.

"We may need to make alterations," he continued. "Do you still have a sewing kit with you, perchance?"

Her face lit up, and she made for her carpet bag. Her sewing implements had been stored there since she had loaned them to Erik for his stitches, and she unearthed them now, unrolling the leather-backed kit onto a small wooden side table for his perusal. "That will do," he said appraisingly. "And I suppose, between your father and the laundry, that you have found occasion to familiarize yourself with men's clothing."

Christine nodded again, watching him run limber fingers over the seam ripper, the thimble, the scissors. "A laundress," he uttered quietly. "It is not what I would have predicted for you." She frowned, questioning him with a look: what was that supposed to mean? "It surprises me that in the absence of your voice, you chose not to utilize your body."

She was not sure which stunned and incensed her more: his words, or the unashamed candor with which he voiced them. Before she even realized what she was doing, her hand had delivered a swift slap to the unmasked side of his face. Her palm stung as they stared at each other in dumbfounded silence.

"Ah." He slowly brought a hand to his pink-tinged cheek. "I ought to have chosen my words more carefully. I was referring to the ballet corps."

She flushed guiltily and averted her eyes. She might have been mortified under normal circumstances, but she was surprised to find that slapping him had felt oddly satisfying, as though she should have done it a long time ago. Yes, she was still harboring some resentment, then.

"I suppose it is just as well," he continued. "I despised how those subscribers looked at you in rehearsals, as though you were a peach ripe for the plucking."

And yet, she thought, none of  _those_  men had abducted her.

They had done worse to other girls, however—far more invasive things. She was not convinced that Erik would have done  _that_ , despite his growing desperation. She watched him sink into a chair beside the small table, crossing one spindly leg over the other, and she wondered what it must be like for a man of his age and physicality to have been denied the joys of the flesh, as he had worded it, for an entire lifetime. A lesser man might have forced an opportunity.

He picked up the shears and turned them over in his fingers, creating a mesmerizing ripple of muscle and tendon along the backs of his hands. She shuddered to remember that those hands had used a similar implement to end a life the day before.

She thought of how many lives  _il Gatto_  must have taken, and of how many more he would have gone on to take, hers and Erik's included, had he survived the night. There was a difference between his intent and Erik's, between his  _method_  and Erik's, and one set was decidedly more inhumane. Could she really fault Erik for using violence to end what would have been an arguably worse legacy of violence?

She pushed the thought away. Who was she to decide who deserved life or death? She must waste no more time or effort trying to justify Erik's actions. The simple facts remained: he was alive, for the time being, and she did not want him to die. If he died, then a part of her would die, too.

His presence was stirring something in her again, a sort of drive that seemed to reach its full potential only when he was near. She had always assumed that it was related to the music, that he was a masterful teacher who understood her voice and connected with her on an operatic level. But here and now, without a voice for him to encourage or manipulate, she still felt strangely bold and compulsive.

She felt like she could do anything with him by her side, and that knowledge was both exhilarating and terrifying.

She had told him that dressing as a boy would mean freedom, but that freedom stemmed from  _him_. He was not bound by societal norms, and thus she was not either, not when she was with him. She likely would not have had the courage to attempt the ruse otherwise.

"I wonder," he said, "whether you might permit me to even out your hair? So that the cut looks more intentional and less...forced, as it were."

Christine eyed him with skepticism; how much hair-cutting experience could he have? But his point was valid and she did not suppose that her hair could look any worse, so she agreed.

He directed her to the other hard-backed chair. From the tiny lavatory in their compartment he produced a cream-colored towel, which he draped over her shoulders. In her periphery, she saw him tug off his black leather gloves and toss them onto the table beside her. Then he moved to stand behind her chair.

His fingers raked through the hair at her scalp, and her body recalled with a wave of paralyzing fear the burning pain that she had felt there only days before, when her hair had been twisted and pulled without mercy. Tears pricked her eyes. Erik could not see them, however, and his hands continued their exploration, feeling out the length and thickness of her hair, the choppiness of the cut. His touch was gentle—soothing, even—and she focused on quelling her nerves and rapid heartbeat.

One snip of the shears, however, and she came undone.

It was instant, reflexive: a stream of tears down her face, shaking hands, quivering jaw. Her breath caught in her chest. The scissors stilled, and she heard the clatter of metal against wood.

With an elegance he should not have had at such speed, Erik was on one knee in front of her. "Christine?"

She could hardly withstand the intensity of his eyes, each the antithesis of the other: a brown so deep she could fall into it, and a blue so pale as to sear right through her with its clarity. She averted her gaze. For once she was grateful for her inability to speak, as she could not have mustered a coherent explanation in that moment. In a halfhearted attempt at miming, she pointed feebly in the direction of the scissors, which lay still open on the table, but it seemed futile and she was quick to give up.

But he knew; of course he knew. When had he become so adept at interpreting her every gesture and expression? Probably, she thought, around the same time she had learned to interpret his. How well they could read each other now, the barriers between them having been broken down by a heated exchange and a pair of tearful kisses in an underground prison.

"Forgive me," he said. "I was not thinking. Of course this is difficult for you." A long hand reached for her cheek—a gesture of comfort, she was sure—but stopped before it met skin. His fingertips hovered at her jaw for a moment before he curled them inward and began to retract his hand.

She reached out and caught it.

Erik stilled, his eyes widening as she pressed his palm to her cheek, leaning into it, her hand flush against the back of his. His skin was cool and papery, his ring like ice against her cheekbone. She closed her eyes. She knew that she was wetting his palm with her tears, and she also knew that he did not care.

They remained like that for several minutes as Christine collected herself, his only movement a brush of thumb to wipe away an errant teardrop. She could not bring herself to look at him, fearing that her need for comfort might be interpreted as something more affectionate.

Finally, she pulled his hand away from her face and opened her eyes to relocate the scissors, which she picked up and returned to him. "You are certain?" he asked, and she replied with a sharp and encouraging nod.

His fingers burrowed into her hair again, and this time she kept her composure, focusing instead on his quick, methodical precision and his softness of touch. Was there anything that he could not do?

A few times he came to stand in front of her, bending his knees until he was at her eye level, so that he could gauge the symmetry of the cut. The first time he did this, his hands positioned on either side of her face, she found herself fixating on his malformed lips, the way they flared out on one end and disappeared beneath the edge of the mask. With his extended arms forming a tunnel on either side of her periphery, those dusky pink lips were all that she could focus on—that was, until she noticed that he was watching her, and then she quickly averted her eyes. She saw to it that she did not fall into that same trap the next two times he repeated his assessment.

Finally he announced his efforts complete, directing her to the mirror that was posted above the washbasin. She studied herself with interest. He had done more than an adequate job; in fact, he had managed to make the style almost flattering. He had been right, too, about the cut enhancing her facial features. Her gaze was drawn to the soft slope of her jaw and the fullness of her lips, and she could not recall her eyes, with their stormy grey undertones, ever being this startlingly blue.

A white mask appeared behind her reflection. "Does it meet with your approval?" Erik asked. She nodded and managed a meek smile, for she truly was grateful, even if she still struggled with the circumstances.

"For what it is worth," he added, his eyes shining with a sort of wistful admiration, "you are as beautiful as ever."

Once again they found themselves confined to a small space for an entire day. Erik settled into a chair with a newspaper— _where_  did these newspapers come from?—and in an attempt to feel productive, Christine made a mental list of what she would need for her disguise: linen shirt, waistcoat, jacket, trousers, stockings, footwear, cravat, cap, drawers. She could not risk wearing a corset as she had done under her costume in  _Il Muto_ , but perhaps she could bind her chest as she had heard of some women doing.

Fortunately, she still had a large square of linen left from when she had made Erik's bandages, and she set to cutting more strips out of it. These she would sew together into one long piece that she could wrap tightly around her breast.

"My wound is nearly healed," Erik said from behind his paper. "I will not require additional bandages."

Christine shook her head to indicate that, no, these were not for him. He stared at her uncertainly, so she swallowed her embarrassment to lift a strip of fabric and mime wrapping it around her chest. His eyes widened, and his exposed cheek flushed more than she would have ever thought possible of his pale countenance. "Ah," he said. "Forgive me. Do...carry on." His gaze flicked back to the newspaper, and she could see the Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

Eventually she finished the wrap, and she knew that she must test it while she still had time to make adjustments. She would need Erik to remove her corset again. His discomfort had already been so evident that it pained her to ask it of him, but she could see no way around it. She began to unbutton her blouse, and there was a startling rustle where the newspaper suddenly crumpled within his tightening grip.

He looked like a startled deer as she shucked the blouse and stepped over to him, but when she turned to present him with the corset laces, he managed to clear his throat and set down the paper. His fingers worked quickly, growing more practiced with every such request. When the laces were loose, she faced him, and he began to flick open the front fasteners as well.

It was this particular gesture that was more difficult for her than any other aspect of being stuck with him. It was too intimate: a privilege and a baring of herself that should have been extended only to a hypothetical future husband. The most unsettling part was that it felt  _natural_  when Erik did it, so much that she nearly wanted him to keep going, to keep peeling away layers and replacing them with his broad hands on her skin.

He pulled off the corset and handed it to her, eyes studying her face. She realized that her breathing had quickened, and she hastily pulled the garment away, grabbing the bundle of linen on her way to the lavatory.

It occurred to her as she gingerly removed her chemise that she might not be able to bind her chest with her finger broken and splinted as it was, and the thought of asking Erik to do it sent a shock of mortified panic rippling through her. She found, however, that the movements were not too taxing on her hand, and she was able to use her unbound fingers with only minor pain in order to guide the wrap around her back.

She examined herself in the mirror when she was finished: topless save for the bone-colored linen that flattened her chest, brown hair cropped close to her head. There was something almost primal about this state of being, and already she felt more strength and freedom of movement.

She could do this. She  _had_ to do this, at least until her hair grew back. This was her new normal; she could not go back to the way things were, and continuing to mourn her past self would get her nowhere.

She left her chest bound and put her blouse back on over it, and when she emerged from the washroom, she packed her corset away. She knew that Erik was watching, and she told herself that she did not care. She found the sign language sheet and retreated to the window seat to study and practice.

Twenty minutes later, she could sign the alphabet without looking, the transition of hand positions etching itself into her muscle memory. Recalling random letters and stringing them together: that would be the greater challenge.

As though reading her mind, Erik folded up his newspaper and offered, "Shall I quiz you?"

He was nothing if not thorough. He had her spell an array of words that he thought she might need to use in due course: thirsty, hungry, tired, ill. Danger, enemy, help. Please and thank you. At one point he said, "I am sorry," and when she began to sign it back to him, he abruptly covered her hand with his to stop its movement. "No. I mean  _I_  am sorry. For this. For...everything."

She could not look at his face, so she focused instead on his fingers, draped over her own with an unshakeable tenderness. "We may have an arduous journey ahead of us, Christine. I must know: do you think you might eventually find it in your heart to forgive me?"

She stared at him as she reached into the recesses of her brain. The desire to forgive him was there, but the ability? His lack of remorse over the murders was an obstacle.

_I do not know_ , she signed.

He nodded curtly. "Then there is hope. Thank you. And dare I ask whether you can trust me again?"

She considered this, and then she went and got her notebook.  _I want to_ , she wrote,  _but I am afraid of your rage spells._

His eyes widened in panic. "Christine," he pleaded. "Surely you cannot think—you must know that I would never harm you."

Did she?

_Did you have a spell last night, when you killed that awful man?_

His reply was barely a whisper: "Yes."

She nodded, and then she surprised herself with her written response:  _I forgive you for him._

* * *

The rest of the day dragged on. They ate in the room, with provisions that Erik had brought, not wanting to risk an appearance in the dining car. Christine watched the rolling scenery outside the train and then napped in anticipation of their nighttime escapades. Erik coaxed her into another game of bezique, and he defeated her more handily this time, evidently having learned her style of play from their last match.

Still, she enjoyed playing him, enjoyed his company in general. She did not feel the need to keep up any pretense, a luxury that she had never experienced with anyone but her father—not even with Raoul. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she could seemingly do no wrong in Erik's eyes, or perhaps it was that they had reached a level of comfort and familiarity unsurpassed by any other relationship in her life. Everything about their interaction seemed effortless.

"Christine," he said, when the clock struck one in the morning. "It is time."

She tied on her cloak, pulling the hood forward. He put his scarf and hat back on. He had emptied out his carpet bag, and he brought it with him as they made their way forward through the coach sleeper cars, the dining and lounge cars, and the now-empty passenger cars. There were a few gentlemen smoking cigars in the lounge car, and the separate parties greeted each other with nods that were coolly polite.

The baggage car was a dimly lit maze of heavy trunks, stacked three or four high, arranged in uneven rows with narrow walking paths between them. Erik pulled the scarf down to his chin. "We ought to take items sparingly from each trunk, if possible," he instructed. "A missing shirt is less likely to be noticed than an entire missing ensemble. We shall have to cobble something together."

Christine nodded her assent and began on the side of the car opposite him, working her way through those trunks that she could access without assistance. It was not until the fifth one that she found a stash of children's clothing, and in it a brown tailcoat that, when she shrugged it on, fit her almost perfectly. What a stroke of luck!

The next trunk was a woman's, with nothing but ruffles and lace, and she had begun to close it when she spotted what was possibly the most ridiculous hat she had ever seen. She practically had no choice but to extract it from the trunk. It was wide-brimmed and light grey, with a spray of long white feathers sticking out on either side. It looked like a headless swan about to take flight, and its "wingspan" was broader than her shoulders. She put it on and went to find Erik.

He was rifling through an armful of men's clothing, and he did a double-take when she appeared beside him. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Christine," he said, "I do believe that some sort of waterfowl has expired on your head." She grinned, and he tossed her a beige cap that seemed positively boring by comparison. "Try that on for size."

She swapped the feather hat for the cap, which fit well enough, and forged ahead with her excavation.

It was only a few minutes later when she felt a tug on her sleeve. She turned to find Erik, eyes gleaming, holding up a taxidermied rabbit. It was dressed for tea in a frock of rose-colored satin, and attached to its paws were a miniature teacup and saucer. She looked from the animal to Erik in disbelief, and then she began to shake in silent laughter. It was perhaps the first time she had laughed since losing her voice, and the catharsis that accompanied it brought tears to her eyes. One corner of his lips curled back in amusement.

Together, they managed to assemble a passable outfit, stuffing the garments into the carpet bag as they went. There were still trunks left unchecked, and so he suggested that they find a few spare items as well. She had begun to walk to the other end of the baggage car when he reached out and grabbed her wrist, stilling her with an upturned palm so he could listen.

There were clanging footsteps on the small metal platform just outside the car, and the door began to creak open. Erik yanked her backward into a narrow gap between trunk and wall, where he hastily pulled her to the ground. They lay flush against each other, his hand on her hip, his face so close to hers that she could feel his breath.

The door pushed open all the way, and there came a crackle of boots on the gritty floor. Their owner stalked slowly across the car, at one point just on the other side of the trunk she lay pressed against, and Erik's arm curled tightly around her waist, pulling her in closer. He smelled clean and sharp, of paper and soap. Overwhelmed, she closed her eyes.

"Hello?" called out a man's voice, gruff and irritated. Christine held her breath. A few seconds passed, and then the voice muttered, "Nobody here; I knew it. Bunch of drunks." Had the cigar smokers suspected their destination? She could think of no one else who might have put someone on their trail.

Finally, the footsteps receded and the door shut again, and she was forced to acknowledge her current position. Fate was clearly conspiring to put her in close quarters with this man, over and over again, and she could not imagine that it would stop any time soon. She opened her eyes to find Erik's mismatched ones staring right back, and she knew that he must be fighting the same urges she was.

_Enough already_ , she thought. She reached up to tug the scarf away from his face, and then she kissed him.

For a moment it was exactly like that first kiss in his lair: uncertain and one-sided and shockingly  _good_. She half expected him to push her away, as he had done then, knowing that the gesture was not born of the love that he sought.

Instead, the hand at her waist tightened around a fistful of her blouse, and his softly bloated lips began to move against hers. Unlike the rest of his skin they were warm, heated by his breath, and they pressed into her: slowly at first, and then with a growing sense of urgency.

It was everything that she knew it would be: softness and texture and pleasure and  _fire_ —oh, so much heat! It was in the exchange of their breaths and the friction of their mouths, and it traveled down her esophagus to pool in her belly.

Her hand began to move of its own volition, needing to grasp, to touch. It raked up his shoulder but was not satisfied with the coarseness of the wool that it found there, and so it continued to his neck, where fingertips finally grazed exposed skin, making Erik gasp into her mouth as he kissed her even harder.

Before she fully processed what she was doing, her fingers had trailed up to his jaw and were slipping under the edge of the cumbersome porcelain there, seeking more skin to touch. His hand flew from her waist to catch her wrist, and he pulled his face away to regard her, his voice tender but firm. "No, Christine."

Warmth flooded her cheeks, but it was not a good warmth this time; it was humiliation. She had made herself vulnerable to him, and he was refusing do the same, knowing full well that she was no longer scared of his face.

Propelled by anger and shame, she pushed herself to her feet. He quickly followed. "Christine," he began, but she held out a palm to silence him. She picked up the carpet bag that he had dropped in the thick of things, and she forced it back into his hand.  _Danger_ , she signed, gesturing broadly to their surroundings: they could not stay here. He looked at her dubiously, his mouth pulled taut, and she knew that she was not fooling him. But she was not wrong, either, and finally he nodded his agreement. "Fine. Let us return to the room and see what needs altering."

When they arrived at their quarters, however, he opened the door only wide enough to deposit the bag, and then he turned to her. "There is something that I would like to show you first," he murmured. "Please."

She let him lead her in the opposite direction, to the very back of the train this time: "The observation car," he explained as they came upon another lounge area. But he strode right past the empty seating, all the way to a door at the rear. She was hit with a brisk wind when he opened it. "After you," he said.

Christine stepped out onto an iron balcony positioned at the very back of the train, where she grabbed onto the rail for balance. Though it was dark, the night was clear and the moon nearly full, and she was treated to the most spectacular sight she had ever seen: giant, snow-capped mountains, all around her, as far as the eye could see. Her mouth fell open.

"The Alps," Erik said, coming to stand beside her at the railing. "Have you ever seen them before?"

She shook her head. She doubted that she would ever see anything like them again, either. They were stunning, breathtaking, and she could not look away.

"It puts things in perspective, does it not?"

She knew exactly what he meant; never before had the details of her own life seemed so inconsequential. There was only moon and sky and earth, and she was alive and grateful to experience it all.

Perhaps, then, that was why she was tempted to slip her hand into Erik's where it rested near hers on the railing. But her insides still churned with shame and resentment, and so she did not. Instead they stood there, silent and still, until the cold air made her teeth chatter and she was ushered back inside.

There was no discussion of what had transpired between them. In her bitterly wounded state, she decided that if he was going to pretend that nothing had happened, then she would, too.

But oh, God, how she wanted it to happen again. And she sensed, somehow, that it would.

Suddenly, the running-for-her-life bit was no longer the most stressful part of this trip.


	9. Florence

It was not until the small hours of the morning that Christine tried on the clothes she intended to wear when she and Erik disembarked in Florence. They felt strange and baggy. Her costume for  _Il Muto_  had still retained some femininity, tailored to emphasize length of leg and curve of hip and backside; this ensemble, on the other hand, was drab and utilitarian, and it hung off of her slender frame.

She frowned at her reflection in the mirror, not wanting to step outside the lavatory and into Erik's view. Perhaps her figure—and his appreciation of it—still meant more to her than she cared to admit.

His eyes still burned into her once she came into view, returning that knot of warmth to her belly. When he spoke, however, he was all business. "The shirt must be taken in," he noted, reaching for her straight pins, "and the trousers hemmed. Do the shoes fit?" They were too big, and she flexed one at the toe to show him as much. "We stuff the toes, then, until we find a new pair in the city."

He began to circle her, wide hands folding and pinning the fabric of her shirt until it fit her torso more snugly. He was careful to restrict his touch to the folds of linen, but his nearness and his skill were so intoxicating that even the tug of fabric against her skin sent chills up her spine. Reminding herself that she was still angry with him did little to override the memory of his lips against hers only an hour before, of the hunger she had felt in his grip and in the pressure of his mouth.

She had kissed him three times now.  _Three_. Nearly four, if she counted the accidental brush of lip in his hotel room the week prior. His mouth was beginning to consume her every waking thought. She had heard about people who patronized opium dens, how they began to do so with increasing frequency as their need for the substance only continued to grow with exposure, and she wondered whether this was what that felt like: addiction so languid and sweet that she hardly noticed her plight, like a fly drowning in honey.

If Erik felt any of this, however, he did not indicate as much. He next had her stand on a chair so that he could pin her trouser legs, which enabled her to peer down at his broad expanse of shoulder as he knelt and worked. Then, carefully, she returned to the washroom to change out of the pinned garments.

The two of them altered clothes by dim gaslight, but it was hard to say whether it was the poor lighting or simply exhaustion that made Christine squint at her stitches so often. Three times she stabbed herself with the needle, sucking in air through her teeth each time it broke skin and drew blood.

"You are slipping," Erik intoned on the third such instance, without looking up from the pair of trousers that he was stitching. He sat opposite her in one of the straight-backed chairs at the small wooden table. She cast a withering look across the table, and then he did glance up. "I will finish the shirt, should you like to rest." She shook her head, and he did not press her.

She noticed that he held the eye of the needle in his teeth whenever he paused to adjust fabric or remove a pin, an image that both endeared her to him and put unnecessary focus back on his lips. How strange it was to see the Opera Ghost engaged in such tedious domesticity! She supposed that he must be accustomed to doing everything for himself, given his lack of other options, but she had always seen him as an untouchable entity whose clothing and possessions somehow just manifested themselves around him.

He began to hum softly—Gounod's "Ave Maria," which had often graced her father's violin—and the train compartment was suddenly transformed into a small haven of warmth and beauty. She had sat with her father like this on many evenings, mending or reading in front of the hearth, cocooned from the harsh elements as she hummed quietly to herself. Erik's gentle croon, already soothing in itself, immediately revived that long-dormant feeling of safe comfort, and her muscles began to unwind.

Then he began to sing the melody. The notes seemed to resonate deep in his chest even as the Latin spilled over his tongue and lips to pool like molten gold in her ears. There were some days in the wake of  _Don Juan Triumphant_  when she had thought she must have simply dreamed his angelic voice into being, but oh, no: it was here, and it was still so beautiful that she could cry. He carried on with his needle and thread as he sang, not once looking at her, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had been appointed as the mouthpiece of the heavens.

Christine's eyelids began to weigh heavily on her, and she thought that perhaps she ought to let them down, just for a few seconds, as a reprieve. She closed her eyes and felt Erik's voice curl around her and sink into her skin. She was vaguely aware of objects slipping out of her fingers. What had she been holding, anyway? Surely nothing important.

Ah, but now there was nothing to distract her from his song. It pulled her tightly into its embrace, and together she and the music fell into a welcoming darkness.

* * *

She awoke in one of the two beds, tucked in but fully dressed, save her shoes. From where she lay on her side, she could see the small nightstand on which her newly acquired outfit was neatly folded. She squinted at the clothing, trying to recall when she and Erik had finished altering it, and then she realized that  _she_  had not. The last thing she remembered was his song lulling her to sleep. It occurred to her that this may not have been entirely unintentional, and she scowled at the thought.

She recalled something else then, and it made her cheeks go hot with shame: she had kissed him. On the  _floor_.

Her heart sank into her now-churning stomach as her mind replayed the previous night's events. Her behavior had been positively wanton! Just because  _he_  seemingly had no moral code did not mean that she should abandon all sense of decorum. Yes, she was about to dress as a boy, but perhaps that was all the more reason for her to keep her behavior in check. How easy it could be to slip into recklessness under Erik's influence.

If she was not meant to give into temptation, however, this recent shock of desire was a terribly cruel way of testing her resolve.

" _Buongiorno_ ," came his voice from the foot of the bed, and she flinched in surprise. One of these days, she thought grouchily, she would have to see him sleep. A man could not subsist solely on music and shadow, skilled though he may be.

Christine dragged herself from the bed and over to the window to survey their surroundings. Gone were the vast, moonlit mountains from the night before; in their place was open countryside of green and gold, sprawling under deep blue sky and dotted with grazing animals and tall, pointed trees. The few structures that she could see were light in color, with gently sloping terracotta roofs. "We are somewhere between Milan and Florence," Erik told her. "The cheese from this area is superb."

Her stomach rumbled at the mention, and she hurried to wash up so that she could eat breakfast, which consisted mostly of partly stale baguette. She wished it was cheese. In fact, she was going to insist upon cheese once they arrived in Florence.

Finally, she took her new travel clothes into the lavatory to change. The better fit was a small boost to her confidence, as was her ease of movement in the garments. She was surprised to find that she looked quite  _good_ —jaunty, even. Had she not already grown accustomed to wearing such clothing in  _Il Muto_ , however, she would have felt practically naked. Everything about her person seemed so much more...accessible.

Perhaps that was why Erik's eyes widened when she stepped out into the room, or perhaps it was simply because, in her final ensemble, she actually looked the part. Either way, he appeared mildly uncomfortable, to the point where his only response was a politely forced nod. She had hoped for more, but she knew that if she had been unpresentable or unconvincing he would have said so, and to question him at this point would be fishing for compliments.

Instead, she took to her notebook to ask him about the one thing that she was missing.  _I believe that you may have come across my knife in the cellar_ , she wrote.  _Do you still have it_?

He frowned. From his carpet bag he produced a small, slender bundle of wrapped cloth, which he unraveled to reveal the knife in question. "This one?" he asked. She nodded and did not miss the stunned surprise that flashed across his face. He extended the hilt to her, fingertips pinching the blade.

"Why was this on the floor, Christine?" he asked as she took it from him. "Surely you did not attempt to use it?" Another nod. Her response momentarily froze him, and his eyes bored into her face as if seeing her for the first time.

Undeterred, she slid the blade into the leather holster at her ankle. The motion seemed to shake him from his reverie, and his gaze fell to where she had just concealed the weapon. "A belt holster would be far more accessible," he said. "We shall purchase one in town. And a new satchel for you as well, as long as we are in the market for leather goods." He turned away under the pretense of tidying the room, which looked practically untouched, and she moved back to the window to watch for their arrival in Florence.

The city, when it blossomed into view, was stunning: tall clusters of pale buildings with terracotta roofs and matching orangey-brown shutters, and an occasional domed cathedral or bell tower to break up the monotony of the skyline. She had heard that there was a river bisecting the city, as the Seine did Paris, and she hoped that she would get to see the water and all of the bridges that she imagined must exist over it.

Erik put his scarf back on as the train rolled into the station, and she was not convinced that it was any less noticeable than his mask. Still, it covered what their pursuers would be looking for, and she supposed that was something. He seemed to think it unlikely that men would be posted here anyway, and he had told her as much the night before.

"I have not been here in many years," he said as they prepared to disembark, "but I seem to recall a quiet inn nearby, closer to the city center, where we might lodge for a night or two. We ought to go straight there." He twined his fingers tightly through hers, and she realized that he fully intended to lead her through the crowds this way.

"Christine," he admonished when she pulled her hand away. "We cannot risk being separated."

She gestured broadly to her person to remind him that, to everyone else on that platform, she was a young  _man_. His face slackened, no doubt as he considered the attention that two men holding hands might attract. "Fine," he snapped. "Stay close."

His brisk, long-legged strides off of the platform, however, made her wonder whether that was truly what he wanted. She had to jog to keep up. It was only when they had traveled several blocks beyond the station that he slowed to a reasonable pace, and then she could fully take in her surroundings.

Christine had grown used to the wide boulevards of central Paris, and the many narrower streets of Florence were almost suffocating by contrast, flanked as they were by tall buildings on either side. She had to admit, though, that the weather was finer. She did not know for sure that this place had more sun than her city, but it certainly felt that way. The air was pleasantly warm, with only a hint of the crispness to suggest that it was autumn.

The inn still existed in the location that Erik remembered. It was dull and unassuming, and clearly in need of some updating and minor repair, but he decided that it would suffice and stalked up to the front desk to book a room.

She nearly rolled her eyes as he began conversing with the employee there in what she could only assume was impeccable Italian. Of  _course_  he could speak fluently, she thought. Truly, though, she was grateful, as her knowledge of the language was limited to choice words and phrases that she had learned from Italian opera or from Carlotta and Piangi.

Piangi. Her heart caught in her throat as she realized how easily she now followed the tenor's murderer, like a puppy on a chain. She studied Erik as he spoke, his stiff posture and all-around darkness a sharp contrast to the lighter hues and mannerisms that seemed to characterize this city. How could a man feel so deeply and yet, at the same time, feel so little?

There was an exchange of currency, and then he turned and motioned for her to follow him up a nearby staircase. "He said that they are out of double-occupancy rooms," he reported as he led her up two flights of stairs. "I told him that we would share a single in the interest of money. You may have the bed, of course; I just did not think it wise for us to be separated yet." They emerged in a dark and narrow hallway, where he inserted a brass key into a lock a few doors down. "He also gave me directions to a reputable cobbler, so that we might find you shoes that fit."

The room was even smaller than their train compartment. There was little else besides the bed—clearly meant for one person—and one chair and a nightstand. She knew that Erik did not like to be out and about at all, let alone in daylight, but she sincerely hoped that he did not intend for them to remain imprisoned together in this closet for any extended period of time.

Thankfully, he was forced to adhere to normal business hours in order to procure the items that she needed. Once they had dropped off their luggage, he took her straight to the cobbler, and he saw to it that she did not leave without a pair of shoes that were exemplary in every possible way: fit, aesthetics, materials, construction. It was absolutely tedious, and she was only too happy to skip out the door in that newly acquired footwear. She had to admit, however, that she delighted in the feel of the supple brown leather against her feet and ankles as they resumed their excursion.

That delight turned to abject horror as Erik tossed the old shoes into the nearest ditch. She gaped at him, releasing an exasperated huff that caused him to look to her in question. She responded by retrieving the shoes, which she stuffed into her satchel; he shrugged and moved on without a word.

Likewise, he said nothing later, after they had found her a new satchel and knife holster, when on their return to the inn she finally found a suitable beneficiary for the shoes: a small-statured beggar with rags tied to his feet. Erik merely watched as she set the shoes on the ground beside the beggar, offering the man a small smile and turning away before the gesture turned awkward.

As she returned to his side, however, there was a slight upward curl to the corner of his mouth.

She felt the brush of his hand against her knuckles only moments later, while they were walking side by side. She looked over to find his fingers curling, straining, as though they yearned to reach out and grasp hers. Her own hand twitched in response, briefly touching his before settling back at her side, and he inhaled sharply.

Two blocks from the inn, they stumbled upon a newsstand. Erik, ever the avid reader, insisted they stop so that he might peruse.

Christine began to stroll the surrounding area, enjoying the click of her new shoes against the large paving stones as she peered into shopfronts. Suddenly, one caught her eye, and she stopped. She knew that she should catch Erik's attention, but he was quite engrossed in the selection of periodicals, and she simply could not resist the pull of the shop.

The interior was musty and poorly lit, but it smelled comfortingly of wood and paper, and its walls and shelves were adorned with a motley assortment of instruments: tambourines, pan flutes, wood blocks, castanets, small drums adorned with bells, accordions whose bellows were each painted with a large, brightly colored diamond. There were music books and papers, straps for the accordions, specialized bags and cases.

What drew her in, however—all the way to the back of the store—were the gleaming curves of the violins, a whole row of them, practically begging to be admired. Her fingers were reaching out to touch one when a raspy voice called out, "Salve, signor!" and she jumped back in surprise.

An old man, hunched and wiry, appeared from behind a shelf, thin lips smiling broadly as he ambled over. He had a wide nose; dark, bushy eyebrows; and so many wonderful laugh lines and eye crinkles that she immediately wanted to adopt him as her surrogate grandfather. He began to speak to her in rapid Italian, gesturing amicably toward the violins, and she could only stare in response, wide-eyed and speechless.

He paused and asked her a question; she shrugged. Then he asked something else, and as she caught the words "speak" and "Italian," she shook her head to indicate that no, she did not speak Italian. "Ahh," he said, nodding sagely. The smile never left his face as he reached out with bony, liver-spotted hands to lift the instrument that she had been examining. Then he held it out to her, its neck and body delicately balanced on sinewy fingers.

Her eyes darted from his face to the violin and then back again, questioning. He nodded, smiled even wider, and uttered something that sounded encouraging as he pushed the instrument closer. Hesitantly, she took it. He grinned and handed her a bow as well.

Christine set the violin beneath her chin and sucked in a shaky breath. As she raised the bow and pressed its horsehair to the strings, it occurred to her that this man might be the only living soul to witness the fact that Gustave Daaé was not, in fact, the only Daaé who could play the violin.

Granted, she had not played in several years, and she had never acquired even half her father's level of skill. Her melody was simple: the same Swedish folk song that Erik had sung two nights prior. It still lived deep within the recesses of her muscle memory; she had played it for so long, and so many times, that she supposed she would never truly forget it.

She had begun to learn the violin even before she found her singing voice, as it seemed the most obvious choice of skill for a violinist to impart on his only child. He had made her keep at it, even after the singing took precedence, because he wanted her to know an instrument. And oh, how grateful to him she was for that now. She would never have the talent or passion that he had possessed, but now she had an outlet, a way to channel the music that had been slowly bubbling up inside of her these past several months until she thought that she might burst.

She did not even realize that she had closed her eyes until she finished the song. When she opened them, her arm with the bow slowly falling to her side, the old man wore a different smile—wistful, perhaps?—and he was not alone.

Erik stood stock-still behind the shopkeeper. His lips were gently parted in astonishment, and he was once more staring as though he had never seen her before in his life. When the shopkeeper began to chatter, Erik swiftly raised an outstretched palm to silence him, his eyes never leaving Christine's face. "We will take the violin."

The old man uttered an apologetic "Scusami?" and the spell was broken as Erik was forced to translate his request.

Before Christine could fully process what was happening, she was being led out of the shop as she clutched the handle of a wooden case that carried her new instrument.

Erik's tone was clipped on their walk down the street. "I was not aware that you could play," he said, and then his voice became louder, throatier. " _How_  was I not aware that you could play?" It was almost as though he was angry, though not necessarily at her.

Suddenly, going back to that cramped hotel room sounded even more unappealing than it had before. She tugged at his sleeve.  _I want to see more_ , she spelled out.

"We cannot," he said rigidly. "It is not safe."

Had she the voice, she would have argued that it was apparently safe enough for them to buy leather goods and to spend eons selecting a single pair of shoes. However, her present capabilities made arguing more difficult than it was worth, and she did not counter him.

They arrived at their room just behind a young couple who were paused outside the neighboring door, the man rummaging through his pockets for what Christine assumed was his key. She glanced sideways at the strangers while Erik withdrew his own key and inserted it into the lock. The woman wore heavy makeup and a blouse with a lower neckline than perhaps any Christine had ever seen; her eyes raked over Christine's disguised form, and she winked seductively.

Christine flushed and looked away, genuinely mortified by the implication that she might be interested in this woman's...services. Erik swung the door open, and she pushed past him in her hurry to exit the hallway. "After you," he said, with a gently mocking sweep of his arm. "What was that about, my dear?"

She dumped the violin case on the bed and shook her head, an indication that it was not up for discussion. She sat on the edge of the mattress and pretended to be engrossed in attaching the new leather knife holster to her belt. The sooner she moved on from this humiliation, the better.

Alas, it was not to be. It was not long before the sound of moans, muffled but unmistakable, bled through their shared wall. She tried to pretend as though the noises did not exist; Erik, reading an Italian newspaper from a chair in the corner, appeared to be doing the same. But the moans began to escalate, soon accompanied by a rhythmic thumping that could only be the headboard knocking against the wall. Christine's eyes widened, and even as her cheeks burned bright with embarrassment, she could not help but look to Erik.

His jaw was tight. He abruptly folded his paper, and the fingers of his newly freed hand dug like talons into the cloth and meat of his thigh.

"Enough," he snapped, and he shot to his feet. "We are going out; I will think of something. Gather what you need."

She was in full agreement, and so she moved a few items to her new satchel and lifted its strap over her shoulder. As she did so, however, she recalled with renewed irritation how he had so readily dismissed her desire to see the city. Yet now, here he was, dictating that they should wander out, and to  _his_  choice of destination.

No. She would not fall into this role again. As he moved for the door, she reached out and grabbed his wrist, yanking him backward. "Christine!" he exclaimed, his face twisting into some uncertain expression between irritation and confusion.

_My choice_ , she signed emphatically, and she set her mouth in a firm line to indicate her resolve.

That was precisely how she came to be sitting on a low wall overlooking the River Arno on a beautiful October evening, biting into a hard, pale cheese that was easily one of the tastiest things she had ever eaten. On the wall next to her was a small selection of cured meats, their paper wrapping splayed open so that she had a resting spot for her bread, which was crusty and toasted and drizzled with olive oil.

She had a bottle of red wine, too. She had refused to let Erik "liberate" a pair of glasses from which to drink the liquor, and in the absence of a better idea, she had taken to sipping straight from the bottle, almost delighting in the way that he flinched every time.

She polished off the cheese and washed it down with another gulp of wine, this time offering the vessel to Erik with a mischievous smile.

"You are a heathen," he said. To her surprise, however, he took the bottle and drank. After he set it down, he gazed out over the river.

"I do not know how to do this, Christine," he said softly. "That is, partake in any sort of...leisure. I am not a good companion."

There was some truth to his statement, certainly, but she did not think him a lost cause. She already rather liked him as a companion, as abrasive and impatient as he was.

"Last night, in the baggage car—" She snapped to attention, and he hesitated. "You would have come to regret it, had things progressed."

There he went again, making decisions for her. Irritably, she signed,  _And you?_

"Never."

She stuffed a piece of bread in her mouth and then drank another sip. And another. Then a gulp, which prompted him to chide her. "At this rate, Christine, you shall drink the whole bottle."

She smiled sweetly, for that was precisely her intention. Liquid courage was exactly what she would need to regain the upper hand this night.


	10. Ascent

It was only a few minutes after she and Erik left the river that Christine realized how spectacularly her alcohol consumption might backfire.

She was keenly aware of his solid form as they walked back to the inn, and she found that not only was she gladder for his company, but she also could not stop thinking about how badly she wanted to  _touch_  him: his sleeve, his elbow, his wrist,  _anything_.

This had not been her plan—quite the opposite, in fact. She had intended to drive  _him_  mad with want. If she was to have any control in their odd partnership, then she needed to make him acutely aware of her presence at all times, to emblazon herself on his thoughts. Since she could not speak, she would have to rely on other methods: her looks, her movements.

It was manipulation, and it was beneath her; she knew that. She swallowed her discomfort by assuring herself that it was for her own safety and well-being. The pair of them had already filled the roles of maestro and instrument, of artist and medium; his general disregard for her personhood had set into motion a chain of increasingly more reckless behavior, one with a disastrous and fatal end.

A man could change only so much in eight months' time, and Erik was slipping back into old habits.  _She_  was slipping back into old habits. She could not let that happen. Thus, she had imbibed a fair bit of chianti. She could play the part without the wine, certainly, but not without first lowering her inhibitions enough to overcome her hesitation and guilt.

With the alcohol, however, came that unintended, desirous side effect. Her gaze kept drifting down to Erik's hand as they walked, and she  _ached_  to brush her knuckles against it, to slide her fingers through his.

"Perhaps tomorrow," he said, "we might tour the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and Brunelleschi's dome."

He had pointed out the monstrous basilica, with its soaring dome and bell tower, as their train had rolled into the city earlier that day. She had not recognized it by sight, but she had heard of it and knew that it was very famous. Her spirits now soared to know that she might see it, and she grinned her enthusiasm, which seemed to satisfy him. There was, dare she say, a tiny spring in his step for the remainder of the walk.

The physical exertion and cool evening air cleared some of the fog from her head, so that by the time she and Erik arrived in their room, she had landed on the best possible balance of coherence and abandon in order to proceed with her mission. She mutely excused herself to the lavatory, hauling her carpet bag in with her.

So far, he had seen her in only full dress, or at least with a dressing-gown, for the night. That was about to change.

Christine had brought one nightgown, a creamy wisp of a thing with ruffled lace sleeves and a smocked neckline that was trimmed in pale-pink ribbon. In the right light, she knew, it was possible to see the outline of her chemise and drawers through the thin linen. She unbound her chest and slipped into those lacy underthings before she pulled the nightdress over her head. She still wore two layers of fabric, but she was not corseted. He would notice. She shuddered at her own salaciousness.

Now more than ever she felt herself longing for her hair, in all of its long-tressed glory, so that she might let it down in front of him and run a brush through the brown locks. For all his praise of how the new cut brought out her features, she knew that it was still a disadvantage, and she struggled to think of how else she could overcome it.

Finally, she decided to peel off her stockings so that her bare feet and ankles would be visible beneath the hem of the nightdress. She brushed her hair, scrubbed her face until her cheeks were pink, and bit her lips to give them a bit of color. Last, she pulled out her favorite bottle of perfume—down to the dregs, but she'd made it last two years so far—and dabbed the smallest bit of fragrance on the pulse points beneath her jaw.

There was an abrupt crunch of newspaper when she padded back out into the room. Still, she all but ignored Erik, reveling in the traces of her delicate and graceful former self that were beginning to emerge, if only through sheer force of will. She could see enough of him in her peripheral vision, however, to know that he was watching her as she set her carpet bag aside. She stretched upward as though preparing for bed, wriggling her toes a bit for show, and she heard him exhale a loud puff of air.

It became increasingly more difficult to focus, however, as the throbbing in her left pinky intensified. It had grown angry in the wake of her earlier movements: first in the music shop, then while she changed and primped in the lavatory. The tune she had played on the violin was simple enough that she'd been able to make adjustments and play without her little finger, but there had still been some strain on it, and she was suffering for it now.

She paused to tighten the small splint that bound the pinky to her ring finger, hoping that would placate the injury somewhat. It sent a shock of pain up her hand instead, and she winced.

"Ah, you are feeling the consequences of your earlier recklessness, no doubt?" Erik queried, nodding toward her hand. "Perhaps it is time that I examine your injury."

Christine shook her head emphatically.  _Later_ , she signed. She was unwilling to relinquish control of the room just yet; she could still salvage it, she thought.

From her satchel she withdrew the last of the evening's culinary treasure trove, a nut cake with raisins and rosemary, and she sat with it on the edge of the bed. His eyes seared into her as she used slender fingers to pick apart the paper wrapping. When at last she had unwrapped the slice of cake, she began to pull off small pieces and slip them into her mouth.

The dessert was delicious enough that she did not have to fake the euphoria she felt each time it hit her tongue—though perhaps she embellished a little. Even better, it had been drizzled with olive oil, which moistened her fingertips until she reflexively brought one to her mouth to lick it off. His eyes widened, and she flushed; she had not intended to stoop quite so low as to forget her manners. Quickly, she withdrew a handkerchief from her satchel and used it to wipe the remaining fingers.

_Control, Christine_ , she chided herself after the blunder, and she had the notion to look up at him and raise the piece of cake in offering.

"Ah, thank you, but no," he said, putting up a palm in deference. He sounded uncertain, however, so she took advantage.

He tracked her warily as she stood and walked over to him. When she broke off another morsel of cake and raised it to his mouth, he frowned, and she could see a flash of panic in his eyes. She countered with a coy smile as she waited for his cooperation.

Finally, his lips parted to accept the cake. She smiled wider, but it was difficult to enjoy the heady rush of victory that followed when he held her gaze so intently, or when his dry lips moved against her fingertips to pull the cake into his mouth. She quickly retracted her hand.

Erik chewed slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers. He was starting to suspect, she knew. But then she saw it: a tiny crumb, adhered to one corner of his mouth, that remained there even after he swallowed and licked his lips. How could she waste such an opportunity?

She cupped a palm around the back of his neck and began to pull his head toward her. To her surprise, a strong arm wrapped around her back to draw her in closer. Her resolve faltered for the briefest of moments. Then she reached up to remove the crumb with pinched fingers, showing him the morsel as she withdrew her hand and her mouth curled into a sly smile.

His irises flared, and he huffed through the nose-holes of his mask. In an instant, he had spun her so that her back was to the wall, his long arms anchoring themselves on either side of her face as a mirthless chuckle rumbled in his throat. "Ah, Christine, you clever minx!" he said. "You nearly had me."

She felt the first stab of panic in her gut. She had clearly not thought this all the way through: another side effect of the wine.

"Was it not enough for you to play the role of coquette once before, when you unmasked me to all of Paris high society?" he hissed. "In fact, I have so often wondered whether that was a desperate maneuver or a planned humiliation. Now, it seems, I have my answer."

Her eyes grew wide at his assumption. Did he truly believe her capable of such malice?

_How could he not_ , replied the voice in her head,  _after what you just did?_

Oh, yes, there was anger in his eyes now, anger that could only be born of hurt and betrayal. "How far were you planning to take this little game, my dear?" he asked, his voice a quiet threat, and then his bloated lips stretched into a sneer. "Or perhaps I should ask, how far were you  _willing_  to go? For I suspect that you underestimate my appetite."

His broad palm was suddenly a finger's width from her face. It cut downward through the air as it followed the silhouette of her cheek, her jaw, her neck. "This body of mine," he growled, " _aches_  for touch, Christine. And you!" His fingers splayed like talons over the center of her collarbone, lingering a moment before he groaned and snapped his hand back into a balled fist. "You are a culmination of everything that begs to be touched, everything that these lips and fingers yearn for and cannot have."

Perhaps it was the alcohol, but his words set her skin aflame, and it felt as though only his hands would cool her.

"But four times now," he continued, "your lips have touched mine. Four! The first two reduced me to ash at your feet, but the third was tinder, and the fourth a spark. Any more, Christine, and I will begin to  _burn_." He leaned in closer until she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. "Do you truly want to ignite that all-consuming fire?"

The scent of spiced citrus, delicious and masculine, drifted across her nose. It was different from the paper-and-soap smell that had enveloped her when she was pressed against him the previous night. Was he wearing a fragrance, too? Had he put it on in anticipation of being near her?

The alcohol began to subdue her brain once more, and she could feel her body taking over, urging her to give in to new, impulsive thoughts. It wanted her to tell him yes.  _Yes, ignite the fire_.

Her hesitation was apparently enough of an answer for him, however. He let out a short bark of bitter laughter. "Ah, I thought as much," he said. "You can only play at caring for so long. Well, my dear, you may dispense with the meager scraps of bare flesh and affection that you have tossed my way, now that I know they are a trail to my own slaughter."

He yanked his arms off the wall and backed up several paces, allowing her to see just how tensely coiled he was now. "If meaningless physical contact were all I desired, I could have arranged for it, this horrid face be damned! Even a corpse is appealing to some, if the price is right!"

Her eyes began to water out of both sympathy and shame. How many of her actions over the past few days did he now suspect of carrying malicious intent? All of the corset unlacings? The kiss in the luggage car? She so badly needed him to know that this was not the case, but she had no voice with which to protest. Even if she had, could she have found the words? She was utterly stunned and humbled by his fury.

He rounded on her again, his anger simmering beneath the surface now. "I have come to expect this sort of vindictiveness from the rest of humanity, Christine, but not from you." Here he jabbed an index finger in her direction. " _Never_ from you."

Her tears began to fall in earnest. No matter her intentions, her method had been utterly cruel. She had given hope to a broken man only to take it away.

"We leave for Rome first thing tomorrow," he snapped. "No sense in dragging out this ordeal any longer than necessary." He crossed the room in a whirl of black fabric in order to fling the door open. And then he was gone, slamming the door behind him, leaving her to blink through tears at the wooden barrier between them.

How angry he must be, she thought, to leave her unguarded in a hotel room: that knowledge stung more than any of his words. But when she quietly moved to the door to peer through the peephole, she caught a flash of black hat and white mask to indicate that he was merely pacing the hall outside.

Christine had never weathered arguments well; the notion that someone might be upset with her had always been too much to bear. Her emotions would skitter out of her control, making it nearly impossible to articulate her thoughts. On the rare occasions when she and her father had argued, she could scarcely face him afterward without bursting into tears, and so she would write him a brief letter instead: an apology, usually, and perhaps some defense of her words or actions.

Her first instinct now was to write Erik such a letter, and it made even more sense in the absence of her speaking voice. Once she had calmed down, she fetched her supplies and sat on the bed to compose.

Why had she not thought to do this in the first place? Why leap to theatrics instead of opening a simple, honest line of communication?

Because theatrics were what he both used and responded to, she realized. She had known that, deep down, when she set her plan into motion. But that did not necessarily mean that it always had to be the case.

In her letter she apologized, and she explained everything as succinctly as possible, starting with the moment when she decided to wrest control from him. What it boiled down to was this: she was no longer his ingenue. She wanted a partnership.

She did not broach the topic of kissing, and she hoped that he would not ask.

He was gone for nearly half an hour, and he sought her out the moment he slipped back into the room, his face softening when he saw her on the bed. Before he could speak, however, she shot to her feet and handed him the note.

He was clearly surprised, his gaze flitting from the page to her face more than once. Without protest, he sat at the foot of the bed to read it, and she perched on a chair nearby, crossing the ankles that felt more and more exposed by the minute.

"Oh, Christine." He set the letter beside him and sighed. "Always such a good girl. My dear, I believe that I deserve all of your wrath and none of your kindness. Forgive me." He reached out to pull her knuckles to his lips. "I was angry not with you but with myself, for I had foolishly allowed myself to hope for forgiveness. Forgiveness and perhaps...something more."

That did little to ease her conscience, as she knew that both options were contingent upon her. As if reading her mind, he added, "I should not expect that of you, and you should not trouble yourself over it any further. But if you still feel the need to exact revenge"—and here he gave her a small smirk—"please know that it is terribly difficult for me to keep our pursuers at bay when my operation is being sabotaged from within."

She nodded and flashed him a sheepish smile. Something seemed to pass between them: an unspoken truce, perhaps, though only time would tell whether they could both abide by it.

Christine reached over and, with mock impatience, tapped on the postscript at the bottom of the letter.  _If you can find it in your heart to forgive me,_  she had written,  _then perhaps you will reconsider our departure time. There is a cathedral that I have been so longing to see._

At this, he produced a faint but honest-to-goodness smile. "Ah," he said. "Well, what is one more day in the grand scheme of things?"

* * *

Sightseeing with Erik was just as amazing as she had expected, if not more so. She recalled hearing somewhere that he had been an architect once—though he had never told her as much—and to hear him talk of the sights of the city, she could believe it.

They spent the entire next morning wandering the cathedral complex: the octagonal baptistery where, he told her, Dante and Machiavelli had been baptized, and the freestanding bell tower, which housed seven bells on seven levels. Erik not only spoke of the construction and design of each landmark, but also spun tales of the city's rich history, leaving in sordid details that she would likely not have gleaned from any sort of reputable source.

The cathedral itself was a stunningly elaborate edifice of marble in white, green, and pink, with floral and geometric patterns, statues and reliefs and mosaics, and both rounded and pointed arches. The interior was more spartan by comparison, but it was breathtaking in its own way. She nearly gasped at the enormity of the nave, whose gothic arches soared infinitely higher than any ceiling she had ever seen. Stunning stained-glass windows were built into every wall.

Worshippers were filing into rows of wooden benches before the pulpit, and a pipe organ blared to signal the beginning of a mass. Christine tugged at Erik's hand and gestured eagerly toward the activity.

He shook his head. "Come now; we both know that there is no place for me at a religious service," he said. "You go; I shall wait for you just outside. Unless I grow restless, in which case I may try to discreetly supplant the organist. Either way, I will find you."

She headed for the aisle and located a seat on one of the benches. She had assumed that Erik was joking about usurping the organist, but now as she watched the small and ancient-looking man who sat at the instrument, she wondered whether she should be more nervous. Her eyes continued to dart in the organist's direction for the duration of the service.

Christine had been raised a Lutheran, as was typical in Sweden, and she had yet to truly familiarize herself with the Roman-Catholic faith despite its prominence in France. She understood little of the Latin being uttered and could not receive communion. Still, the words were beautiful. The music was beautiful. The surroundings were breathtaking, and she could readily take comfort from a place of such tranquil devotion, and among others who worshipped.

When the mass ended and she joined the crowd trickling out of the nave, Erik located her and gestured for her to follow. "I have saved the best for last," he said.

They had not climbed to the top of the bell tower because he had insisted that they save their strength for the dome, and now Christine understood why. There were  _so_ many steps, hundreds of them, and she was grateful to be in men's clothing because she could not even imagine ascending the landmark in a bustle and skirts.

On the way up, Erik offered her another history lesson. Construction of the cathedral had started at the end of the thirteenth century, he said, but it was more than one hundred and twenty years before construction of the dome began, simply because no one knew how to erect it.

"It was designed without any guarantee of completion!" he said. "A large part of the cathedral had a hole in place of a roof for more than a century. How is that for a test of faith?"

_Seems foolish_ , she signed.

One side of his mouth curled back into a wry smile. "Or genius."

_Perhaps both._

"If I did not know any better," he said, with a mischievous glint to his eyes, "I would think that you were speaking of me."

She merely proffered an innocent shrug, as if to reply,  _Who can say?_

Finally, as her breaths came in shallow gasps, they reached an open-air observation deck, and there it was: all of Florence and beyond. It was a sea of pale rectangular buildings and terracotta roofs, surrounded by rolling hills and pastures and vineyards, and it seemed to her that she could see the very curve of the earth in the distance. They were so high up that the deck almost felt like it was swaying, and she moved to grip an iron guardrail, trying to anchor herself against an onslaught of dizziness.

Erik caught her arm. "Are you alright, Christine?"

She panicked; had someone seen or heard him? She glanced around, but the only other gentleman on the deck was now leaving, his back to them as he descended the stairs. She took a deep breath and nodded, and he released her.

They spent the next several minutes gazing out at the city and the surrounding Tuscan countryside from all angles. Just as she had in the Alps, Christine became acutely aware of the vastness of the Earth, and of her own insignificance in it—but this time, it drove her to tears. How could a single country contain so much beauty? And to think, how much of the world she still had yet to see!

And, just as she had in the Alps, Christine was tempted to reach for Erik's hand—but this time, she did.

It twitched in response, but his fingers were quick to curl around hers as he turned his head to regard her. She was still crying, and she knew that he could see.

"This is when we turn to music, you and I," he said softly. "When mere words will not suffice."

She inhaled sharply, and then she moved to embrace him.

Her hands slid under his tailcoat, along the slick silk of his black vest, until her arms encircled his waist. Her cap fell off as she lay her head against his shoulder, but she did not move to recover it. After a moment's hesitation, he folded her into his arms, enveloping her in his cloak to block out the brisk wind.

He pressed his lovely, misshapen lips to the crown of her head. "Ah, see, this... _this_  is why I love you, my dear."

For only the second time in her life, she wished that she could say the words back to him.

* * *

The cathedral tour was not her only treat for the day.

Erik took her to see Michelangelo's  _David_  at the  _Galleria dell'Accademia_ , and they strolled through several of the city's public squares. He had her sample various local wines and delicacies, including a heavenly brandy-soaked sponge cake with whipped cream. She knew that he kept a watchful eye, with one hand inside his tailcoat (no doubt closed around the Punjab lasso) the majority of the time. Still, he seemed to be enjoying himself. She felt like a queen.

Was this what it would have been like to be married to Raoul, she wondered? A life of leisure? But then, a life of forced social functions was hardly a life of leisure after all. No, it would have been nothing like this.

She was exhausted when they returned to spend their final night in the inn, but she was happy. It was the first time all year that she could recall feeling truly happy.

_Thank you for today_ , she signed once she slid under the covers of the bed. It was a longer sentence than usual; she was getting faster and more adept at the hand movements.

Erik nodded solemnly from where he sat across the room, clutching his now-folded newspaper. "It is suddenly tempting to stay here indefinitely," he conceded, and his gaze settled on her with such palpable admiration and longing that her stomach flipped. "But you know that we must move on." It was both a question and not a question. She nodded.

"It will be dangerous."

_I know_.

"And you may once again find yourself in the company of La Carlotta."

She sighed dramatically, which made the corners of his mouth twitch.  _I know_ , she replied again.

"Good," he said, and the glint in his eyes returned—but this time, she thought, it spoke more of malice than of mischief. "I am rather looking forward to it."


	11. Rome

The late-morning train from Florence to Rome was not an overnight train, and as such, it forced Erik and Christine to ride in close proximity to others. The passenger car in which they found themselves was lined with pairs of inward-facing benches, and he was quick to stake out such a pair for the two of them at the back of the car.

The wide wooden benches could have easily accommodated a few more bodies, but Erik's dark presence and ominous glower were enough to ward off those few who dared to come near. His scarf and the brim of his hat kept his face largely in shadow, but with a slight tilt of his head, he could bring his eyes into view and skewer an unlucky victim with the heat of his glare.

It was only half an hour into the journey—and after, she assumed, several visual scans of the premises—that he relaxed in the slightest. He removed his black scarf but kept the masked half of his face angled toward the window, seldom uttering a word. She leaned back in her seat and gazed at the passing scenery.

They had quickly grown comfortable with these shared silences. Silence was, after all, the default condition for a man without company and a woman without a voice. Often, one of them would look over to study the other, and these moments were somehow not awkward, either.

Christine could not stop thinking about their day together in Florence, and their embrace at the top of Brunelleschi's dome. She had felt that strange pull toward him that she always had, an attraction driven by mystery and music and, yes, desire. But there had been a subtle shift in their relationship; with each passing day, she saw further past his caustic nature and into the remarkable web of thoughts and emotions beneath, and she was beginning to realize just how well her personality dovetailed with his.

Had he not been the same man who had done those terrible things at the opera house, she could have easily fallen in love with him right then, atop that dome and seemingly on top of the world. Why,  _why_ could this not have been the man who revealed himself to her in her dressing-room mirror?

Perhaps it would have been, she thought, had she not been so hasty to unmask him.

She tried to shake off the thought. What was the proverb that Meg had loved to quote? "Regretting the past is like chasing after the wind." Her dear friend could never be bothered to dwell on what had already transpired; her drive was too great, her outlook too hopeful.

Christine sat upright with a start. Meg! How could she have forgotten? Meg now lived in Rome, with her wealthy Italian husband!

Excitedly, she wrote the names of Meg and Madame Giry on a sheet of her notebook, scrawling their address below, and then she tore out the page and handed it to Erik, who set down his newspaper to look.

"Out of the question," he said without a moment's hesitation. "Too much risk." She pouted at him, but he did not see, preoccupied as he was with frowning at her handwriting. "How long have the Girys resided in Italy?" he asked, and as she signed her response—five months—she felt a pang of anxiety.

"Why did they relocate?"

_Meg married_ , she signed.

"And the new husband? Is he well off?"

Christine nodded, the sinking feeling in her stomach deepening with every passing second. Surely he did not think her friends capable of this manhunt?

He did not say as much, but he gingerly folded the page with their address and tucked it somewhere into the lining of his tailcoat. From there, he resumed his reading to signal the end of the discussion. She turned to the window, trying to swallow her disappointment and quell the tears that were forming. It had been so long since she had been in the company of a friend.

"I  _am_  sorry," said Erik quietly, and she looked back to find him watching her from behind the newspaper. "If they are at all complicit in this plot, we put ourselves in danger. If they are not, our presence endangers them. Either way, I imagine that they will both want to skewer me on sight, and I cannot risk our separation."

He was right, she knew. She nodded her acceptance, and he returned to his paper.

The train ride was to last about six hours, and they were less than two hours in when she began to grow restless. She got up and stretched, and then she fished around in her satchel for her book in progress, a novel by George Sand.

"Research?" Erik asked lightly. She looked up in confusion, prompting him to nod toward the book. "A female author who dressed and published as a man," he explained. "Quite apt, given the circumstances."

Christine simply smiled in response. It had been a rather fortuitous choice of text, but she had selected the novel only because she had read two other works by Sand and devoured them with enthusiasm. These stories, she thought, contained a particular depth of emotion and passion, as well as a unique understanding of the female condition, that only a woman could capture.

This one in particular was about a woman trapped in an unfulfilling marriage who—for want of requited, passionate love—pinned all of her hopes on a heartless young lothario; meanwhile, her own cousin, the husband of her maid, pined away for her in the background. It was turning out to be quite dramatic: the maid, for example, was revealed to be carrying the lothario's child, taking her own life when he began a romance with the married protagonist.

Now, having been spurned by the young rake and informed of her husband's death, the tortured protagonist had entered into a suicide pact with the very same cousin who loved her and who had lost his expecting wife amid the turmoil. Christine's attention should have been riveted to the page. However, with Erik sitting across from her and Rome approaching ever faster, her eyes and mind began to wander with increasing frequency.

She did not even notice that her gaze had once more drifted to the rolling hills and farmland outside the train until Erik's voice pulled her out of her reverie. "Shall I read aloud so that you might enjoy the scenery?"

Surprised, she nodded and handed him the book, pointing to where she had left off. She was not sure that she had ever heard him do a recitation. He gently cleared his throat, and she was enveloped by his dulcet murmur.

The two remaining characters, man and woman, were hiking to the moonlit sea cliffs where they would jump to their deaths. Where Christine's stomach ought to have twisted with anguished concern for those ill-fated cousins, however, she only felt awe and slow-spreading warmth. It was difficult to focus on the story when satiny phrases like "the regular plashing of the cascade" spilled from his tongue, warm and supple.

But when the lovelorn cousin sat the protagonist down for a long tale of woe, Erik's voice constricted ever so slightly, enough to reel Christine back into the present.

"'I was born to love," he read. "'None of you chose to believe it, and your error in that regard had a decisive influence on my character. It is true that nature, while giving me an ardent heart, was guilty of a strange inconsistency; she placed on my face a stone mask and on my tongue a weight that it could not raise; she refused me what she grants to the most ordinary mortals, the power to express my feelings by the glance or by speech. That made me selfish. People judged the mental being by the outer envelope and, like an imperfect fruit I was compelled to dry up under the rough husk which I could not cast off.'"

Erik paused and swallowed. When he continued, his voice was rough around the edges. "'I was hardly born when I was cast out of the heart which I most needed. My mother put me away from her breast with disgust, because my baby face could not return her smile.'"

Christine's eyes grew wider as she watched him. His expression was calm—a mask beneath another mask—and no one else might have suspected, as she did, how he was affected by the text. Should she stop him? But no, she could see him being offended at that.

Instead, she crossed over to sit next to him, just close enough that her thigh pressed gently against his. Dressed as she was, she could not risk anything beyond that. She heard him loose a gentle sigh, and his leg slackened ever so slightly against hers.

He forged ahead with the character's long lament of a life spent in unhappiness and isolation. Her fists clutched nervously at the fabric of her trousers as he read, for she was unable to listen without imagining how wretched his own youth had been.

Then there came a turn in the narrative. "'Heaven, however, sent me a gift, a consolation, a hope. You came into my life as if'"—here Erik briefly choked and stumbled on the words, in a manner utterly unlike him—"'as if Heaven had created you for me. Poor child! abandoned like me, like me set adrift in life without love and without protectors, you seemed to be destined for me—at least I flattered myself that it was so.'"

He stopped, his jaw rigid, his fingertips curling tightly into the novel's cover. There was a long moment in which he was still and Christine held her breath, waiting, until he gently shut the book between his palms. "Perhaps you ought to read the rest on your own," he said quietly, and he held the novel out to her. She took it, unsure of what else to do or say.

He stood stiffly from his place on the bench. "Excuse me for one moment." Without explanation, he slipped around to the back of the car and disappeared.

Christine's heart broke for him all over again.

She could not stop thinking back to the final night in his lair when he had unselfishly professed his love for her. In that moment, with anguish emanating from him as thick as the lake fog outside his home, she had found herself wishing desperately that she loved him, just so that she could say the words back and absorb some of his pain. But she had not loved him. How could she have? She had only known him by the masks he had worn: the ghost, the voice, the angel, the madman.

It was only when she had gone back to return his ring that she saw him stripped of all facades, both literal and metaphorical. It had been too late then, too chaotic: Piangi dead, the mob closing in, Raoul pulling her away from her fallen angel.

But here it was before her again: his raw, aching, pulsing humanity. It was growing and evolving and intriguing, and she liked it very, very much. So much, when coupled with her physical desire for him, that she did not want to ignore it anymore.

She felt a stab of guilt even as she entertained the notion. To give in…would that not betray the trust and sacrifice of everyone she held dear, of everyone who had suffered at his hands?

But where were those people now? Raoul, for all his valor, had not deemed her worth marrying, in the end. Meg and Madame Giry had left months ago, and Erik had made it clear that she would not see them any time soon. She had no allegiance to the managers who had treated her as little more than a prop, and Carlotta was...well, Carlotta.

At this point, Christine reasoned, she owed loyalty to no one but herself. Herself, and perhaps the memories of Piangi and her father. She could not argue that either of them would have wanted this. However, her father had harbored more Christian love and kindness for his fellow man than anyone she had ever met, and that consideration held weight.

For better or for worse, Erik was her life at present. And despite her sudden, violent uprooting and her broken finger and her loss of hair, her quality of life was somehow  _better_  than it had been before his reappearance. Though she was grateful—proud, even—to have had the chance to assert her independence, Christine knew that she was not meant for days toiled away in laundry rooms and isolation.

No, Christine Daaé was all music and heart and wanderlust and light. She just needed someone nearby to remind her of those things, to bring out the best in her, and to keep her from withdrawing too far into her shell and into her own head.

Her father had filled that role, as had Meg and Madame Giry, for a time. But those rare, almost transcendental occasions when she had positively thrummed with exhilaration: those had all been Erik's doing.

Even if he did not deserve her after what he had done, had he not been denied enough in this world already? How could he ever come to appreciate the value of life when his own life seemingly held none? He had said it himself: he had only begun to learn compassion when she had shown it to him. Perhaps, in that way, she was meant to be  _his_  guide and guardian.

In any case, this charade of hers was bordering on ridiculous, she realized. By punishing him, she was also punishing herself. No, not just punishing:  _torturing_. She did not know exactly what it was that she felt for him now, but she felt  _something_ , and suddenly it seemed cruel and unnecessary to withhold it from him any longer.

Christine scribbled a quick note, tore the sheet from her notebook, and shoved her scattered belongings into her satchel before pulling the strap over her torso.

In the aisle, she faltered. Where would he have gone? Options were limited, at least. She headed for the observation car at the back of the train.

She was nearly there, passing in front of the lavatories, when he appeared before her so suddenly that they nearly collided. His lips parted in surprise. "Christine."

At first, she could only stare at him. There was so much warmth and gladness welling up in her breast, and for the first time ever, she truly let herself  _feel_  it. Her heart hammered wildly against the confines of her ribcage.

"Forgive me," he said. "I should not have left y—" She cut him off with a fingertip at his lips. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, she raised his broad hand to her cheek, and she briefly leaned into it before she turned to kiss his palm.

He inhaled a shaky breath before his eyes darkened and he snapped his hand away. "I believe that we have discussed this cruel equivocation at length," he growled, "and I do not desire your pity."

_Not pity_ , she signed. She stared unflinchingly into his eyes, willing him to read the truth there.

His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat, and he shook his head, as though refusing to accept the evidence now in plain sight. "What, then, if not pity?" he asked. His voice cracked on the words, the sound devastating to her ears. "Surely you do not expect me to believe that you are kissing me without aim?"

She gave him the note.

_I am ready to surrender to my darkest dreams_ , it said,  _and they have only ever led me to you_.

Wide, mismatched eyes flicked from the page up to her face, reading first her words and then her expression. "You would ignite the fire," he said, quietly threatening, both a question and a statement.

With a surety that she had not previously possessed, she signed her reply.

_No second thoughts_.

Erik stared at her for what felt like an eternity, until she began to worry that something had broken within him. Suddenly, he pushed her into the nearest lavatory, locking both of them into the closet-sized space, and then he was kissing her, pressing his mouth into hers with such intoxicating force that the edge of the sink dug into her spine, certain to leave a bruise there.

It was the first time in their shared history that  _he_  was the one driving the kiss, and he came at her so ravenously that her limbs threatened to give out. His hands raked over her neck, her face, her hair. Her own hands found his waist and clung there. Then, as she began to tire of the one-sided assault on her mouth, she surged forward to return the pressure.

With a strangled groan, he relented. Their mouths slanted against each other, working in tandem, slowing but also deepening. Several times she bumped into the cumbersome edge of his mask, but she could overlook it for now. His lips—oh, his lips!—were uneven around the edges, their roughness a peculiar thrill against her own mouth, but they were so soft and yielding at their center: a perfect metaphor for the man himself.

Their movements forced her lips apart, and then the warm tip of his tongue was there, seeking entrance. She let her own tongue dart out in experiment; the resulting dance between them sent pangs of desire shooting through her body. Another muffled groan escaped his larynx.

At length, his mouth left hers to trail kisses over her jaw and down the side of her neck. She allowed her head to fall back, exposing her pale throat.

"Oh, Christine." The words emerged as half moan, half whisper. "How often I have dreamt of tasting you like this."

She shuddered at his confession. Then it occurred to her that he was saying and doing these wonderful things  _while she was dressed as a man_ , and she almost shuddered again at the thrilling intensity of his desire.

Her mouth fell open as his lips skimmed over the skin of her collarbone. She was not sure what she had expected to happen as a result of her confession, but it was not this. She could not have conceived of anything as breathtaking as the sensations awoken by his touch. She was certain that her legs would collapse beneath her at any second.

His mouth claimed hers once more, and this time his arms wrapped around her, pulling her to him until she thought she might cease to breathe altogether. His fingers curled into the muscles at her back and shoulders, kneading and caressing them, moving lower with every simultaneous sweep of his lips against hers. Wide hands slid roughly down her hips in order to cup her backside through suddenly too-thin trousers, and she arched against him in desirous surprise.

Erik's mouth broke away from hers with a gasp, his hands springing back from her flushed and trembling form. "Forgive me," he said, his eyes wide with shock. "That was...ungentlemanly."

_Which part?_ she was tempted to joke, but she was still in shock herself. Every nerve ending in her body was alive and buzzing with heat and desire, and she did not know how she could possibly return to ordinary life after this. She had half a mind to place his hands back where they had been and carry on, but she could tell from the restrained tension in his frame that the spell had been broken for now.

Still, the mood had changed; there was a new lightness to his movements as he straightened his mask and wig and handed her the cap that she had not even realized was on the floor. "Christine," he said, and for once he could not seem to meet her gaze, staring instead at her feet. "What you have given me...I..." He trailed off, swallowed. "Thank you."

One at a time, so as not to draw attention, they slipped out of the lavatory and returned to their seats in the passenger car. Erik had refused to make use of the baggage car so that they could disembark in Rome without pause, and Christine was relieved to find that their luggage and her violin remained where she had foolishly left them unattended.

Nothing more could be said about what had just transpired between them, as they were once again masquerading as two platonic male traveling companions. It was just as well, for nothing really needed to be said. Erik's mismatched irises blazed with renewed admiration, and she liked to think that, for perhaps the first time ever, he might be reading the same sentiment in her own eyes.

* * *

She woke to a firm hand on her shoulder. She had opted to nap for the remainder of the trip, stretched out on the bench, the satchel under her head serving as a lumpy pillow, and as she squinted up at Erik's form towering over her, the soreness pervading every inch of her body made her question her choice.

"We have arrived," he murmured. "Be ready to run."

It was not that he expected an ambush, he had explained in their hotel room that morning, but he could not rule out the possibility of one, and therefore they must prepare accordingly. He had walked her through several possible scenarios until she could comfortably rehearse them in her head, and he had made her study his hand-drawn map of the train station and surrounding area until she was confident that she could find her way around if they got separated.

If their pursuers were stationed at the terminal, however, they did not make themselves known. The pair's brisk flight from the station was entirely uneventful, and when they spilled out onto the busy streets of Rome, Christine released the breath that she had not even realized she'd been holding. She looked over to Erik, intending to express her relief with a smile, but something about his rigid posture made her stop. He kept up his swift strides, and she hustled after him as she always did.

They traversed several city blocks before he spoke. "Christine," he said quietly, his voice further muffled by the scarf. "In a moment, I shall pretend to drop a handkerchief, and you will turn to retrieve it for me. When you do, I need you to glance behind us only long enough to determine whether there is a tall man with a red cravat within your sight. I fear that if I look over my shoulder once more, I shall make my suspicions known. Can you do that?"

She nodded, even as her pulse begin to race. She freed one of her hands by hoisting the handle of her violin case into the same hand bearing her carpet bag.

"Good. Return the handkerchief with your right hand if he is there, and your left if he is not. Five seconds."

True to his word, within five seconds a handkerchief had fluttered loose from his trouser pocket to land behind them. Christine whirled around to grab it, using her peripheral vision to scan the street as she did so. When she caught up with Erik once more, she passed him the handkerchief using her right hand.

"Damnation," he said on an exhalation of breath. "We are being followed. Maintain your pace, Christine, and do not let on that you know."

Her heart began to thud with such echoing force that it was a wonder none of the passersby heard it.

Erik made an abrupt turn at the next street corner. "Change of plans," he said. "We head for the piazza three blocks from here. It is quite large and should be crowded at this time of day."

On their way into the square, they passed a weathered structure about three stories high, its tan brick marred with brown water stains and creeping vegetation. There were several arched openings in the stone whose purpose she could not decipher. Whatever this formation was, it looked incomplete and very, very old: ruins, she concluded with a thrill. Without stopping, she tugged excitedly at Erik's sleeve and pointed to the artifact in question.

"Those are the remains of a third-century aqueduct," he said brusquely. "Come; we have no time for sightseeing."

Christine focused on matching his pace through the square, and she tried to hide her disappointment as she reminded herself of their reason for being here. Honestly, what had she expected? A leisurely holiday? They were being tailed, for heaven's sake. Yesterday's wonderful excursion through Florence had been the exception, not the rule.

They crossed the piazza near its perimeter, weaving through the other pedestrians, until Erik veered suddenly toward a side exit. From there, she followed him across the street and into a small  _osteria_ adjoining an inn, where he waved away the approaching host and walked right through to the kitchen.

" _Scusami_ ," he muttered to the startled cook as he strode past, his black cloak rippling behind him. Christine flashed the man an apologetic half-smile and hurried to catch up. A step out the back door and they were outside again, in a darkened alley this time, Erik's brisk pace never relenting.

He led her across the alleyway and through another kitchen door, where they again intruded on a stunned kitchen and service staff in order to pass through a quiet  _ristorante_ and emerge on another street. There was an empty cab conveniently just outside, and he ushered her in as he called to the driver with an instruction that she did not understand. With a sweep of his cloak and one last glance behind him, he jumped in to sit beside her in the vestibule.

They rode in silence for several minutes while Erik watched to ensure they were not being followed. He sat tense and erect, his mouth pulled into a taut line, and his hand hovered at the inner lining of his tailcoat where he kept the Punjab lasso. He looked every bit a predator, such that her heart skipped a beat and she could scarcely believe that he was the one being pursued. Would he have fled so readily, she wondered, had she not been with him? Had she not insisted that he stop killing?

Finally, he lowered the scarf and pivoted to fix his ice-blue eye on her face. "The driver is taking us to a well-known basilica church, near the  _Teatro Argentina_ where La Carlotta is presently employed," he said. "We shall play at being tourists until we are out of his sight. From there, we can find lodging and investigate the whereabouts of our diva in question."

As she nodded her assent, she felt herself once more sliding back into the role of helpless ingenue. She could not fault him for taking control in this situation, not when he was so much more worldly than she, but she longed for a way in which she could contribute somehow.

He was silent for the rest of the way, his eyes scanning all the while. It surprised her, then, to feel a brush of cool skin against the hand that she had been resting on the bench beside her.

She sucked in a breath as his palm lightly cupped the back of her hand. The pad of his thumb slid down from the tip of her index finger, over the coarse ridge of her knuckle and across the pale expanse of skin that led to her wrist. From there, he laced his fingers through hers, where they remained for the remainder of the trip.

The church in question was a towering edifice of pale brick and limestone, with a soaring dome and columns that seemed to stretch toward the heavens. Christine nearly pulled a muscle craning her neck to take in the facade.

"Baroque," said Erik, following her gaze. "I am certain that you would like the frescoes inside, but alas, we must keep moving."

They had walked only two blocks in search of lodging before he stopped suddenly and laughed: a cold, calculating chuckle that reminded her of the one she had heard during  _Il Muto_ , following the first unsettling croak that had emanated from the prima donna's throat. He gestured to a poster that was plastered to the side of a building, whereupon it became clear that the return of his unnerving laugh was no coincidence. The poster advertised the current production of Verdi's  _The Force of Destiny_ at the  _Teatro Argentina_ , featuring none other than renowned soprano Carlotta Giudicelli in the role of Leonora.

"Well, my dear," said Erik, with a flourish of his hand, "how would you fancy a night at the opera?"


	12. Prima Donna

If Christine had to assign one flaw to Erik's vast body of worldly knowledge, it would have been his timing of delivery.

So great was her sense of foreboding as they snuck into the  _Teatro Argentina_ that she thought her heart might very well leap out of her chest, yet he paused to gesture across the way, noting with mild interest, "We are quite near where Julius Caesar is believed to have been stabbed twenty-three times."

She swallowed. She felt traitorous enough as it was, joining Erik in his efforts to accost La Carlotta. The confrontation would likely not occur at the theatre itself, he had told her: "Consider this visit reconnaissance. But we might as well take in the opera while we are there, no?"

Still, it was inevitable that she should appear at his side when he interrogated the prima donna; he refused to let Christine out of his sight. Knowing Carlotta, she would see this as yet another vindictive betrayal on Christine's part, and she would dramatize the situation as only she could.  _Et tu, Brute?_

Ah, well. She had never had hope of reaching some sort of peace with the woman anyway. That bridge had burned long ago.

Once they had found lodging for the night, Erik had insisted that they find her formalwear for the occasion. "Your current attire would be far more conspicuous than my mask," he had maintained. "I do not expect to sit among the other patrons, but we must at least be able to move among them if necessary."

With such limited time constraints, they had been forced to buy off the rack. On top of that, she could not try on the garments, not with the risk of exposure. Thankfully, her guesses at size were not far off the mark. The trousers were a bit snug in the hip, a fact thankfully hidden by the tailcoat, as well as a bit too long in the leg, for which nothing could be done on such short notice. She could tell that the imperfect tailoring irritated Erik to no end, but for the most part, he kept quiet about it.

He  _was_  vocal, however, about her leaving her satchel behind so that they would blend in more easily. It pained her to be without a means of communication, so she had tucked into her pockets a few folded sheets of paper and a small, dull-tipped pencil.

They entered the theater just ahead of the crowds, through a locked service door around the corner, with Erik's lock-picking tools making a brief reappearance. He then led her through dark, cramped corridors and staircases as though he had been there a hundred times before, though from his explanation she gathered that this was not the case. "Many of these great opera houses have a space above the auditorium, if only for lighting maintenance." His voice was muffled by his scarf, which was pulled up nearly to his eyes. "We shall see whether our luck this evening affords us a sequestered view of the performance."

He found the room without effort; she supposed that most opera houses must have the same basic layout. It was hot and musty, with exposed wooden beams illuminated by the faint moonlight that crept in through a skylight in the pitched roof—and by a handful of small, circular openings, like portholes, angled downward near the base of the wall on one side.

"Well, my dear," said Erik as he pulled down his scarf, "we shall have to sit on the floor, but this should do." He moved to kneel in front of one of the round openings and peered through. "Ah, yes. Perfect. Come."

Christine did as instructed, kneeling to look through the aperture beside his. It was about the size of her face and offered a direct view of the stage, as well as the orchestra pit. She and Erik sat there without interaction for some time, watching patrons file into the seats and boxes of the auditorium. When the orchestra began to warm up, her heart fluttered instinctively at the sound, as it always had when she had waited in the wings for a performance to begin. Oh, how she missed that thrill of anticipation.

"Organized chaos," her companion murmured, presumably in reference to the cacophony of instruments below. "It baffles me that I should continue to find that single note, set off by an oboe, to be one of the most glorious of all of man's creations." He threw her a sidelong glance. "There is something strangely comforting about the sound, no? I often wonder whether others recall, as I do, the first time they heard it."

She smiled and removed the pencil and paper from her pockets to scrawl a response:  _The Vienna Philharmonic_ ,  _in the golden hall of the_ Musikverein,  _with my father._

It had been a special treat, with some strings pulled by her father's friend in the orchestra. She would never forget the splendor of that concert hall: brand-new at the time, with gold-framed paintings on the ceiling and tall Greek figures cast in gold and seemingly every detail gilt-edged and shining.

He held the page over the light streaming in through the aperture, peering down at her handwriting. "Of course," he said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. He continued to gaze down into the auditorium even as he passed the sheet back to her.

"After you left me," he said slowly, "I thought that I should die.  _Should_  die, but could not. As I mentioned before, you see, every fiber of my being is wired to survive. Perhaps that was my punishment: to endure heartbreak the likes of which I have never known before."

Her face must have fallen, because Erik looked up at her suddenly and cupped a hand over hers. His eyes were piercing. "Do not  _dare_  feel any modicum of guilt, Christine."

She nodded, hesitantly, and he continued. He kept his hand on hers; both were gloved, yet there was a warmth that seemed to emanate from his strong fingers.

"I knew that I could not stay, and so I fled to another underground safehouse—a fallback plan, if you will, for I had always known that it might come to that—and I grabbed some necessities, another mask, and I fled. My flight seemed aimless, yet I know now that I was merely gravitating toward what my soul sought: someplace where it might be soothed by the restorative powers of music. And do you know where that was, Christine?"

She simply gazed at him, her eyes growing wider by the second as she recalled his previous tale about escaping to the city of music. His voice was nearly hoarse when he provided the answer: "The golden hall of the  _Musikverein_  in Vienna."

She inhaled sharply. His fingers gripped hers with more fervor, but it seemed that he was now addressing the floor instead of her.

"I snuck in and listened to the philharmonic play Haydn and Brahms and Beethoven, and I heard and felt  _you_  in every note—in every  _rest_ , even! And I knew with every shred of instinct that I possessed that we could have forged something wondrous together, you and I, had I not let jealousy and temper get the best of me."

His eyes watered as he honed in on her face once more. "And now you have handed me  _this_ —this second chance—for you are a goddess of compassion whom I do not deserve in the slightest." His voice wavered ever so slightly and dropped down to a whisper. "Oh, Christine. I fear that I was overeager on the train this morning. I now ask you, ever so humbly: may I give you a proper kiss?"

There was a warm flutter in her stomach. She gave him a timid nod, and she pivoted her body to face him.

He reached up with a slow but steady hand to remove his hat, and then hers, setting them side by side on the floor nearby. His palm came around to cup the back of her head, and he drew her in.

His lips were warm and welcoming, yielding tenderly to hers as they converged. He administered only a gentle pressure, chaste and close-mouthed, while his long fingers combed through the cropped hair at the back of her head. It was poignant and perfect and yet, as he parted his mouth just long enough to swipe gently at her bottom lip with his own, she found herself aching for more.

His mouth briefly pressed into hers a second time, and then he pulled away, releasing the back of her head as he did so. Her gaze flicked from the pillowy, misshapen lips that had just kissed her up to the deep brown of his left eye, and her insides flooded with warmth at the adoration she saw there. "Ah, but you are exquisite," he murmured, and he lifted her knuckles to his lips.

The sudden, resounding start of the overture jolted them apart: the brass section blaring three ominous repetitions of the same note. There was a weighty pause that left the auditorium crackling with tension, and then the note—an E, Christine thought—was trumpeted thrice again before the strings cut in with a whirling, frenzied melody.

"Are you familiar with this particular production?" Erik asked as they settled in to watch. She shook her head. She was not, but she was almost positive from those opening notes that this was to be a tragedy, and it filled her with dread. She was not certain that she could stomach any more death, fictional or otherwise.

The curtains opened on an elegant set piece: the private rooms of a noblewoman, if she were to guess, with a window leading out to a balcony. And there, opposite a male cohort whose rich bass voice opened the scene, was La Carlotta.

She wore a rich, voluminous gown of dark green, edged in gold trim, that perfectly set off her red hair. Her voice had lost none of its skill yet somehow even more of its warmth—which had already been lacking—as though she had been sapped of some will to care.

Next to Christine, Erik scoffed. "I see that her acting has not improved with experience."

Still, Christine was jealous. She knew that she should not be, not after what the diva had been made to suffer, but it was what it was. To have a voice was to have power, and she watched as Carlotta took control of an entire room with hers.

"Leonora's father, the Marquis of Calatrava, is bidding her goodnight," Erik murmured beside her. "He wishes to know what troubles her, but she will not say, and so he takes his leave." Accordingly, the actor walked off stage, and Leonora began to exchange words with a maid who had come in stage left. Christine looked to Erik for further explanation.

"Here we learn that Leonora is in love with Don Alvaro, but her father forbids the union and therefore she is preparing to run away with him this night. She is devastated, however, to leave her family and homeland."

Erik's quiet narration continued to punctuate the first act. Leonora was nearly ready to confess her plans to her father, despite the maid reminding her that it would end in Alvaro's death, but then the man himself entered through her balcony. She begged him to delay their elopement another night, so that she might see her father once more; he responded by reminding her of the magnitude of his affections.

The lovers were finally prepared to depart when the marquis burst in and, upon discovering the two of them together, disowned his daughter. In an attempt to clear her name, Alvaro offered up his life in exchange for his wrongdoings. But as he tossed his pistol to the floor in surrender, it discharged and fatally wounded the marquis, who cursed the lovers as he died.

As they fled, signifying the end of the first act, Erik spoke. "I would expect most everybody to be seated at this point, management included. It is time for our reconnaissance."

He led her back downstairs. He had not yet detailed his plans for the evening, and she had not asked. Perhaps she should have, she thought guiltily, but she had been trying to distance herself from this aspect of their travels as much as possible.

"We cannot confront Carlotta here," he told her as he discreetly broke into the unattended theatre office downstairs. "She is always flanked by an entourage; it would be too risky. No, we shall find our prima donna's permanent residence and move forward from there." He began rifling through drawers and papers among the various desks and cabinets laid out in the room. "Look for anything resembling a personnel file, my dear."

She did as she was told, but something about this situation—besides the obvious breaking and entering, and the invasion of privacy—did not sit right with her. Why would Erik execute this stunt in the middle of a performance, rather than in the dead of night? Surely the latter would be much less risky. Perhaps, like her, he was simply curious for a glimpse of Carlotta in the wake of everything that had happened—if only to know what he would be dealing with.

She was the one who found it: a slim file labeled "Giudicelli" that contained, among other things, a record of the singer's personal information: date of birth, place of residence, work history. Beside "Next of Kin" was written, "None."

Christine's heart sank. It was with some reluctance that she gave the sheet to Erik, whose mouth curled back at the sight of the woman's address. "Excellent work, my dear," he said. "You may put it back. I have committed it to memory."

They were back in the stuffy loft before the end of the second act, which Erik quickly summarized for her. It took place more than a year later, Leonora and Alvaro having somehow been separated. By coincidence, Leonora, disguised as a man, ended up staying at the same inn as her brother Carlo, overhearing his vow to avenge his father's death by killing both Alvaro and Leonora. In turn, she fled to a monastery and revealed to the monks there her intention to live piously and alone. They decided to send her to a nearby cave, where she could live by herself and they would bring her food.

Intermission came quickly; Erik and Christine passed the time by further reminiscing over their experiences at the music hall in Vienna. She kept edging closer as she showed him her written responses, hoping that he would kiss her again, but he did not. He was too absorbed in recounting his recent months in the city, where it sounded as though he had stumbled desperately from one source of music to the next, as a drunkard might pursue his next bottle, in order to suppress his otherwise unbearable self-torment.

In act three, Alvaro and Carlo had unknowingly befriended each other in the army, both having joined under false names. Carlo came upon a picture of Leonora in his friend's belongings and confronted him, but the two were pulled apart by fellow soldiers before coming to blows. Alvaro threw down his sword and vowed to live out the rest of his life in a monastery.

"You can see how this will play out," said Erik with an exaggerated sigh. "Opera is nothing if not predictable."

Sure enough, act four revealed that Alvaro had taken refuge at the same monastery as Leonora, where he had now spent five years of his life. Carlo, however, managed to track him down and challenge him to a duel; the scene ended with the pair leaving in search of a remote location for their final confrontation.

In a valley outside her cave, Leonora appeared once more, looking haggard and forlorn. Carlotta broke into an aria, and Christine realized that she had heard it before—from the prima donna herself, during one of the many moments the diva had spent trilling and preening backstage. But this version...this was different. For once, Carlotta actually seemed vulnerable, as though her notes were powered by raw emotion.

"She is singing of her unending love for Alvaro," Erik murmured, "and asking God for peace. For death."

It made sense, then: Carlotta Giudicelli was likely singing of her own sorrow and loneliness.

It was beautiful, and it was devastating.

Her eyes were glistening by the end of the performance. Christine herself had tears streaming down her cheeks, while down below the audience sat in enraptured silence.

Erik's hand came to rest on hers, his fingers curling around its width. "The act is nearly over, Christine. We must leave."

She nodded and let him lead her back down several flights of stairs, but her sense of dread grew with every step. She did not want to do this. She did not want  _him_  to do this. She was almost content to spend the rest of her life being pursued if it meant that Carlotta would be left undisturbed in her grief.

"We will hire a cab a few blocks from here," said Erik as they spilled out of the service door. "I want to be certain that we are not followed. We should have time; no doubt she will want to change out of costume and make a showy appearance for her adoring fans."

Later, inside the cab, Christine finally prompted him with a written question:  _How does the opera end?_

"Alvaro stabs Carlo in the duel," he replied. "He hears Leonora at her cave and, thinking that she is a monk, calls upon her to comfort the dying man. They are finally reunited, but when she rushes to her brother's side, he stabs her with his dying breath." Christine choked back a sob, but Erik's blank expression remained unchanged. "She dies in Alvaro's arms."

_That aria felt real_ , she wrote to him.  _We should not be doing this._

"Nonsense. La Carlotta does not have a selfless bone in her body and is therefore incapable of Leonora's scope of affection. Goodness, Christine, this is our entire purpose for coming to Rome! Do you want us killed?"

She frowned; it was obvious that she did not want that end, and she loathed his condescension. Begrudgingly, though, she shook her head and tucked the papers back in her pocket.

The cab carried them fifteen minutes south, along the curve of the River Tiber. Carlotta's flat was on a tree-lined avenue overlooking the water. Across the way, the pitched roof of a temple-like church peeked out through a thick copse of trees. The streets and structures here were elegant and pristine; she was apparently doing quite well for herself.

Because the apartment overlooked a gently rounded intersection, the facade of the building itself was gently rounded, not at all evoking the stark Parisian corners that Christine was used to. Erik pointed out the flat on the third story, where three windows overlooked a rounded balcony with elegant metal grating. "There will be a servants' entrance through the coach house," he said. "Come."

The coach house was empty save for a few horses, its resident coachman no doubt waiting outside the theater to drive  _la signora_  home. Erik forced his way into the stairwell leading upstairs but paused during the ascent.

"It is likely that she keeps servants," he said. "Alone, I might be able to escape their notice. However, I fear it will simply be too difficult for the both of us. I think it will be best if I round them up." Her mouth fell open in horror, and he huffed impatiently through the nose-holes of his mask. "For heaven's sake, Christine, what else would you have me do?"

_Return after lights out_ , she signed. Surely everyone would be asleep then?

He shook his head emphatically. "No. There are too many unknowns, too many risks. I would need to spend more time observing before I made that attempt. And your presence...complicates things."

She knew that he did not intend to imply she was a burden, but as far as sneaking and spying were concerned, it was obvious that she was. She hated that feeling, and she felt herself once again becoming intimidated by his expertise, as she had in their early lessons together.

She waved him forward with a sullen expression. Might as well get it over with.

Briefly, but tenderly, he trailed the back of his hand down her cheek. "Have no fear, my Christine; I will not harm anyone." He began to mount the steps again, adding, "Except as necessary self-defense, of course." She was hardly comforted.

When they stopped at the door to Carlotta's flat, he gave further instruction. "Remain here; then at least the servants will not be able to identify you. Give me your knife, though." He extended a hand, nearly rolling his eyes at the terrified expression she gave him. "I do not intend to  _use_  it. It simply makes for a more effective threat than the lasso."

She removed the knife from her hidden belt holster and surrendered it, feeling more and more vulnerable by the minute. One corner of his distorted mouth curled back, and with gloved fingers he tipped his hat toward her. " _Un momento, signorina_."

With that, he had slipped through the door, leaving the anxiety in her gut to wrangle with a newfound pang of desire.  _Damn_  that voice, she thought.

The next ten minutes felt impossibly long, such that she was actually considering going into the flat when Erik came out to fetch her. "Three of them," he reported, handing back her knife. "Butler, cook, and maid: all bound and silenced in a guest room until further notice."

This time, she managed to swallow her horror, and she followed him to the darkened drawing-room to await the arrival of the lady of the house.

* * *

If Carlotta knew right away that something was wrong, she did not show it. Rather, she stood at the threshold barking orders in Italian so distinctly that even Christine could understand her: namely, that she wished for the butler to assist with her coat.

Finally, she seemed to ascertain that something was amiss, and she went quiet: a rare spectacle. Christine heard her shuffling closer, toward the drawing-room where Erik stood waiting for her appearance and where Christine sat timidly in an armchair at the back of the room.

The prima donna's silhouette darkened the doorway, all ruffles and feathers and fripperies.

"Please, signora, do have a seat," came Erik's voice from the shadows: cool but lovely, as always, though that did little to erase its inherent threat. That intersection of soothing tone and malicious intent made Christine shiver as it often had in times past. He moved out of the shadow, allowing his white mask to reflect the dim light of the hallway.

Carlotta's face went ashen, but there was otherwise little evidence of her fear. For the first time that night, Christine noticed that her face looked thinner, and not in a healthy way.

"I prefer to stand," she said haughtily. "If you are here to kill me, signor, just do it now. I will not beg."

Christine recalled more than one occasion when the prima donna had expressly—smugly, even—defied the opera ghost's orders, and she wondered why she would have ever expected the woman to cower in his presence.

Erik chuckled softly, pressing his gloved fingertips together to form a tent of black leather. "Now now, signora, I have merely come to chat. But I must ask you to step into the room, away from the door."

She seemed to consider this for a moment, glancing sidelong at the entrance, before sidling into the drawing-room and draping her fur mantle over a chair back. She fixed Erik with her most saccharine smile. "And to what do I owe the pleasure, Signor Ghost?" It was then that her gaze swept over the room and she spotted Christine. " _You,_ " she hissed. "You little traitor! I ought to have known—"

With a swiftness akin to a threat, he held up his hand for silence. "She has nothing to do with this," he said. "Circumstances have forced us together; she is not here by choice, but rather for safety."

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "I find that hard to believe."

"Believe it, or do not; that is your choice. I have come solely to demand that you call off your lackeys." His certainty surprised Christine; had he not said that he was unconvinced of the diva's involvement? But she saw how intently he watched her now; perhaps he hoped that his confidence would catch her off guard.

If that was the case, though, he must have been sorely disappointed. The woman's face betrayed nothing. "I hardly know what you are talking about," she said.

He was unmoved. "You do indeed. Call off your lackeys."

A slow, devious smile crept across the diva's face. "Someone has found you!" she uttered with sinister delight, and she cackled softly as his posture tensed. "Oh, signor, I have waited for this since the day you killed my dear Ubaldo. The gendarmes, though—such fools! They could not even find a trail, let alone track you down like the mad dog you are. It pleases me to know that someone is finally closing in."

"I have your staff at my disposal," Erik growled, "and it would be most unfortunate were you to force my hand."

She shrugged. "I know nothing. Search my home, ask my staff, and you will  _find_  nothing. If these were  _my_  lackeys that you speak of, they would be protecting me right now, and you would be dead."

It was a valid point; Christine knew that, and therefore Erik must have known, too. There was no sense in dragging this out further, she thought, but he apparently had other ideas.

"If not you," he asked, "then who? What could anyone else have to gain from my death, if not retribution? What of his family?"

"He spoke of no one but his ailing mother in Sicily. The old woman is probably dead now, for all I know. But really, signor, who would  _not_  benefit from your death? Mine was not the only livelihood that you ruined."

"Your livelihood appears to be perfectly intact, signora."

Here she puffed up her chest and stared him down with a scowl that would have sent lesser men running for the hills. "You have  _no idea_  what I have endured," she hissed, "since you took my love from me."

"Ah, yes, what a great love you must have had for this man whom you could not even be bothered to wed!"

"And sacrifice this freedom? No man is worth that, signor. But Ubaldo, he knew how I felt, and he did not protest."

Erik scoffed. "The very picture of romance."

"Yes, yes, and you are certainly the expert in  _that_ ," Carlotta derided. She gestured broadly at their surroundings. "Look at this! I could not earn this as an obedient wife, and I would not give up such security for a thousand husbands. I come from  _nothing_. Ubaldo, he came from  _nothing_. Love? Kindness? They are useless in a world where it is every man for himself." The corner of her mouth pulled back into a small smirk, and she jerked her head in Christine's direction. "We both know that your little ingenue would still be a nobody if not for your cruel tricks."

He was in front of her in two swift strides, somehow managing to tower menacingly even as he lowered his face to hers. "You overstep your bounds," he said, his voice a quiet threat.

She did not back down. "Speaking of those whose lives you have ruined"—here she looked directly at Christine—"I hear the little songbird is without a voice." She pouted and clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. "So sad."

Erik's jaw tensed, and Christine could practically see the steam pouring from his ears. "Are you suggesting that I am to be blamed for this development, too?"

"Who can say?" replied Carlotta breezily. "These things do happen. My cousin, you know, stopped speaking after her baby brother drowned. She was talking to a friend and did not see or hear him until it was too late.  _Mamma_  always said she gave up her voice so that it would not happen again." Her gaze skewered Christine, and her meaning was clear.

Christine knew that this was a divisive tactic—classic manipulation on Carlotta's part—yet she could not shake the idea now that it had gotten into her head. Was it truly possible for her own  _body_ to take her voice away, if it subconsciously believed that it was protecting her from further trauma?

Erik was watching her now, something like panic flitting across his face, and she wondered whether he could read her thoughts. He whirled on Carlotta. "Enough," he snapped. "You want to disparage me? Go ahead. But you keep her out of this! In fact, we are leaving." He extended a hand toward Christine, gesturing for her to come forward, and she obeyed. " _Buonasera_ , signora, and my congratulations on your mediocre performance."

As they walked past her to exit the flat, Carlotta watched the pair with a sort of smug sadness. "I can never forget what you have done," she called to Erik, "and neither will she. That you must endure this fact every day that you are with her—well, perhaps that is even greater punishment than death."

He was silent in the stairwell. Only when they had made it safely outside did he speak. "She will not call the police," he assured her. "She clearly has no faith in their abilities, and she knows that we will be long gone before they arrive. Let us find a cab back to the hotel."

Christine nodded weakly. It felt as though their partnership had deflated somehow, leaving behind an empty shell, and she did not know how to repair it. She was barely even cognizant of getting into the cab with him, let alone the direction that it lurched in.

It was all the more surprising, then, when Erik suddenly tensed next to her. "This is not the way to the hotel," he said.

She glanced up at him, wide eyes certainly betraying her nervousness even as she signed,  _Shortcut?_

He shook his head. "No. We are decidedly traveling  _away_  from our destination."

And then the carriage stopped.

The two of them exchanged glances. Erik's hand slipped into his tailcoat for the lasso. "Stay here," he said, and he cautiously opened his door.

He had not even set foot on the paving stone before there was a blur of motion and he was tackled to the ground.

Christine had no time to react before her own door was thrown open. A pair of hands wrapped around her throat like a vise, and as her vision began to darken, she could think only of how she would have liked to sing one last time.


	13. Survival

The shock and pain of being strangled was so great that Christine initially resigned herself to her fate. Out of reflex, she grasped and clawed at the hands that gripped her throat, but she did not expect anything to come of her efforts. She had pivoted enough in her seat to see her attacker now: a lanky man, not much older than she, with tan skin and a mop of dark curls. He did not look particularly sinister, but he was cold and clinical in his assault.

When her lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen, however, she started to fight.

Her hands and nails lunged for any part of him that was exposed: hands, face, eyes. Her legs came to life and she kicked out, the soles of her shoes slamming into his midsection somewhere. There was a grunt and one of the hands at her throat loosened; she slammed her arms against his to knock them away.

Somehow she managed to scramble out of the cab and onto the wide gray paving stones of the street below, but he was on her immediately. She was shoved down, her elbows and palms slamming painfully into the ground. She had time only to roll onto her back before he was straddling her, his wiry hands once again constricting her throat. She tried to buck against him, but he was too strong, too heavy against her small frame, and so she once again clawed at his hands: an exercise in futility. Next she fumbled for anything nearby that she could grab to hit him with, even as she grew lightheaded.

Then she remembered the knife. Her hand flew to her belt holster and closed around the handle of the blade, still safely tucked away. Her vision was quickly narrowing, and she did not pause to think before she swung the knife up into the side of the man's neck.

He gasped, releasing her throat as his eyes lost their focus. Christine was shocked back into awareness, and in a sudden panic, she withdrew the blade. An immediate gush of blood suggested that she had hit an artery.

Even as her attacker pawed at his open wound, they were both coated in his blood, warm and slick. In a matter of seconds, he had collapsed onto Christine's chest, his eyes open but lifeless as the crimson liquid continued to soak her shirt and pool on the ground.

Her body let loose a noiseless sob, and she pushed the man off of her and staggered to her feet. A dark and foreign street swirled around her. She was not cognizant of releasing the knife, but she dimly heard the clatter of metal on stone at her feet. It was as though she was observing her mechanized body from a distance, unable to inhabit it in any meaningful way.

Her gaze wandered to find Erik throttling a different attacker near the back of the cab. The man went limp; Erik removed the lasso from his neck and let him fall to the ground, where another body lay prone. Her fallen angel was bleeding from a gash over his eye; otherwise, he appeared disheveled but relatively unharmed.

His eyes widened when they found her, flooding with terror the likes of which she had never before seen in his face. She imagined how terrible she must look; every part of her skin felt hot and sticky with blood. He appeared to take in the scene before him—blood, body, knife—and then he flew to her side faster than seemed humanly possible.

"Are you hurt?" Even as he breathlessly forced out the question, his deft fingers were loosening the cravat at her throat and flicking open the shirt button at her sternum. He slipped a broad hand beneath the garment and swept it along her upper chest, feeling for injury with the gentlest of touches.

She managed to shake her head to indicate that, no, she was fine.

But she was not fine.

When he was satisfied by the examination, he withdrew his hand and carefully repositioned her clothing, blood-soaked though it was. "We must leave at once," he said. "They brought us to an unpopulated street, but we are still out in plain sight."

Christine nodded, but her legs would not cooperate. She could only watch as Erik dragged the fallen men into the cab, presumably to keep them out of sight longer. He had dispatched two of them himself. Were they dead, too, she wondered? Or had he managed to subdue them while sparing their lives, leaving her the sole murderer at this scene? His hands were bloodied, but that was likely from handling her and her assailant. Or was her assailant now the victim?

She stared down at her own hands. They were shaking uncontrollably. The blood was beginning to dry and cake, lending a rusty tinge to the crimson, and it felt as though it had seeped into her pores and would forever taint her palms and fingertips. It was no wonder that Lady Macbeth had gone mad!  _What, will these hands ne'er be clean?_

Her legs shook, too, and within a matter of seconds, they gave out entirely and she collapsed to the ground, curling in on herself to try and stop the shivers that worked their way down her body. Though her eyes remained open, all she could see was blood. She heard Erik repeating her name, but her extremities did not seem to function.

She was vaguely aware of him kneeling beside her, and then he wrapped her in something—his cloak?—before hoisting her up off the ground. She fell against his chest, cradled like a child, as he began to carry her.

He sat her on the back of a mare that had been pulling their cab. There, he curled her fingers around the reins, making her steady herself just long enough for him to unhitch the horse and then swing onto the saddle behind her. When he moved in close to take up the reins, his chest flush against her back, she immediately sank into him. His form was cool and bony but very much alive, and he felt safe to her, even if something in the back of her mind knew that after tonight, she could never actually  _be_  safe, not even in his presence.

They rode into the night. Christine could see and hear everything that was happening, and yet she did not feel a part of it, as though she was watching from a separate plane. She had no sense of space or time. It did not even occur to her to question where they were going; she was not sure it mattered.

They came to a stop in front of a gated residence, where Erik dismounted and opened the gate before lifting her from the saddle. He looped her arms around his neck, and she held fast. Then, with a light slap to flank, he sent the horse skittering down the heavily shaded street.

The three-story home inside the gate was enormous and uniquely detached from its neighbors, its exterior stucco-peach with white trim and arched windows. A door of heavy, dark wood loomed at the dimly lit entrance, and Erik freed a hand just long enough to pound on it.

It seemed an eternity before the door opened to reveal an irritated and bleary-eyed butler in a dressing-gown and nightcap. Erik said something urgently in Italian, and though the words were muffled by the scarf obscuring his face, Christine understood enough to gather his meaning:  _I must see the lady of the house._

The butler did not seem keen on this idea. A clipped exchange between them ensued, with Erik's tone growing more hostile by the second. At one point he mentioned Christine by name. Finally, the butler retreated in a huff, leaving them to wait in the foyer. Erik's hold on her remained steady, and through the scarf he pressed his lips to her forehead. "This may be a terrible idea," he murmured, "but if there were ever a moment when a friendly face might prove useful, it would be now."

And then the familiar face was there, descending the staircase into the foyer, framed by blonde curls that tumbled over a dressing-gown of the palest violet: Meg. She was somehow even prettier than Christine remembered. She padded down the polished steps in a pair of slippers, her face tense and alert despite the late hour.

Christine's eyes watered. Oh, how she had missed her friend! And for Erik to have brought her here—well, she could not process those implications right now. She could not even move, nor would she have been able to speak had she still possessed her voice.

From the staircase landing, Meg caught one look at her face and paled. "Oh, Christine," she whimpered. She glanced to Erik, whose face remained dark and shrouded. "Quickly, monsieur, please bring her upstairs!"

He obeyed, following their hostess into a modest room furnished with a bed and wardrobe of intricately carved walnut. Meg withdrew a pillow from beneath the russet bedspread, fluffing it at the head of the mattress before motioning for Erik to proceed. When he lay Christine down on the bed, the cloak fell away from her chest to expose her bloodied shirt and skin. Meg's hand flew to her mouth, and she gasped.

"She is not injured, as far as I can tell," Erik assured her. "The blood is...not hers."

Meg eyed him warily even as she crossed to kneel at the bedside. "Dare I ask whose?" She clasped both hands around one of Christine's and prodded softly. "Christine, sweetheart, can you hear me?"

Tears once again flooding her eyes, Christine managed a slight nod.

Erik's resulting sigh of relief was almost inaudible. "We were attacked. She—" He paused. "She was witness to a man's death, and she appears to be in shock. Forgive me the intrusion, but our lodging may be compromised, and I was made aware that you lived nearby."

The blonde looked up at him sharply. "Were you indeed? Have we met, monsieur? I am afraid that I cannot quite make out your face, nor your voice."

He hesitated, and then he tilted his hat back and pulled the scarf down.

Meg shot to her feet, erecting herself as a barrier between him and Christine even as she trembled. The two had never actually met face to face, but that white half-mask must have been unmistakeable to her. She managed to eke out only a single word, just barely a whisper: "Why?"

"I am being hunted, and she was used to bait me. We fled. And, it seems, we have been followed since leaving Paris."

The woman's eyes widened further. "Oh, but that explains everything! She wrote to say that she had relocated, yet she did not give a forwarding address. It was so abrupt, so unlike her, that  _Maman_  took the train to Paris to check on the apartment." She glanced forlornly at Christine, who still lay motionless, taking in the exchange through glassy eyes. "She wired that she found most of Christine's belongings left behind, and I feared the worst."

Erik laughed softly, without mirth. "Meaning me."

Meg nodded. "It appears that you mean well at present, but  _Maman_  is due back tomorrow evening, and she will be...less than pleased...by your coming."

"One crisis at a time, signora." He exhaled deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose before he let his gaze drift to Christine. Even as she watched him, it seemed as though she was seeing through him, at some fixed point on the opposite wall. She was so very tired all of a sudden.

"Shall I send for a doctor?" Meg asked.

"No." His reply was sharp and assertive. "No one can know that we are here. It would compromise her safety and perhaps even yours, I am afraid."

The blonde nodded again, and her voice dropped down to a shaky whisper. "Monsieur...what has happened to her hair?"

He gave an almost imperceptible wince, and his response was low and throaty. "It was meant to get my attention."

Meg swallowed and turned to kneel at Christine's side once more. "How does a hot bath sound, dear?" she entreated, as though addressing a small child. "I shall rustle up a fresh change of clothes, and then you can sleep in this wonderful bed as long as you would like."

As comforting as it was to see her, Christine did not want to pull Meg further into this mess. Her shock was beginning to thaw at the edges, and below its icy surface was only deep, burning shame and horror over what she had done. She could not unload such a burden on a dear, sweet friend like Meg.

No, there was only one person who could possibly understand her inner turmoil, and he had brought her here with the best of intentions, not realizing that  _he_  was the one whom she needed at this moment. As Meg made her offer, he began to withdraw. Christine's outturned palm shot out to stop him, and she shook her head fervently. Both friend and phantom regarded her with surprise.

"But Christine," said Erik gently, "you must let Miss Giry—"

"Signora Marchesi," Meg corrected gently.

"—you must let her help you out of these clothes."

Christine shook her head again and reached for him. Even as he inched over and allowed her to clutch his wrist, he looked uncertainly to Meg, who said, "I think that perhaps she would feel safer in your company." They both turned back to Christine, and she nodded, too desperate to dwell on the flash of hurt and confusion that crossed her friend's face in response.

"If that is what you wish," Erik replied. His steely confidence seemed to be eroding, giving way to some sort of mild discomfort, and Christine was not sure what to make of it.

"At the very least," said Meg, heading for the door, "let me fetch some provisions. Excuse me."

She exited, leaving Erik to stare down at Christine for a long moment. He eventually sat at the edge of the mattress and reached out to stroke her hair. "What is playing out in that lovely head of yours, my Christine?"

He snatched his hand away when Meg returned with a bundle of items, which she set down on an upholstered chair opposite the bed. "Clean linens and clothes," she said, "should you actually succeed in urging her off the bed and into the bath. There is a change of clothes for you as well, though I am afraid that the fit will be off. You are taller than my husband."

"And where is the master of the house this night?"

"On a hunting excursion, mercifully." Meg cast one last sympathetic look at Christine as she moved back toward the door, and then she addressed Erik a final time. "I have had the room across the hall prepared for you, and I shall ensure that the two of you are not disturbed. But if Christine is still bedridden by lunchtime, I hope that you will permit me to check in on her."

"Yes, certainly. Your hospitality is most appreciated, signora."

Meg paused in the doorway, her fair hair rippling as she glanced over her shoulder to frown at him. "I will not pretend to like you, or to condone anything that you have done. But as long as you are here for Christine's benefit, you may consider yourself among allies." The corner of her mouth twitched. "At least, until my mother returns." She slipped out into the hall and closed the door quietly behind her.

The resulting silence was almost stifling. Erik looked down at Christine once more. "What do you think, my dear? Can you manage a trip to the adjoining bathroom if I remain just outside?"

She was unresponsive, her dry lips pressed into an unyielding line.

" _Christine_ ," he said, more firmly now. "You cannot begin to recover from this ordeal as long as you are still wearing the evidence."

She agreed with him, in theory, but her limbs were leaden, her eyes still incapable of focusing. She could not even will the strength to move her head as she had done earlier. He was silent for several seconds, and then he stood and walked away. There came a distant sound of running water as she continued to stare at the opposite wall.

Who was that young man who had been so intent on ending her life? Had he been personally wronged, or simply a hired hand? Did he have a family? A wife? Dreams of achieving something beyond his existing lot in life? How had fate determined that she should remain on this earth while he should not?

Erik reappeared suddenly, his arms slipping under her without warning, and she was hoisted from the bed and carried into the bathroom. The bathtub had been filled, and the air was thick with the steam curling off of the water's surface. He set her on the floor, against the wall, and removed her jacket and shoes before moving a few paces away.

Christine watched numbly as he slipped out of his own tailcoat and shoes before setting the garments aside. He took off his hat, and it occurred to her that she no longer had hers, having apparently lost it in the earlier scuffle.

Next he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, exposing pale skin that clung to the muscle and tendon beneath. Somehow, it did not occur to her what he was about to do until he actually did it. "Forgive me," he said, and he lifted her and set her in the center of the tub, fully clothed.

The bath was perfectly warm, but the shock of it all made her gasp nonetheless, and she started shaking again. The water, already turning a cloudy rust-pink, soaked her clothes until they adhered to her skin.

The water at her back shifted, and Erik slipped in behind her. He gently drew her back until she lay against his chest, his legs in their black trousers running parallel to hers on either side, and then he wrapped his arms around her upper torso and held her.

It was entirely too effective. She began to cry.

She released a soundless torrent of great, heaving sobs that left her hiccuping and breathless, and he responded only by holding her tighter. He did not speak until her tears were spent.

"Oh, my angel." He sighed and kissed the crown of her head. "A strong conscience such as yours is its own Achilles' heel, is it not? You were not meant to shoulder such a burden." In her periphery, she saw his arm extend to a ledge beside the bathtub to retrieve a washcloth and a bar of soap. "But it is not yours to bear," he continued. "The blood is on  _my_  hands; let me wash it from yours."

He slowly dragged the washcloth over the skin of her face and neck, and over her newly exposed clavicle once he had dispatched her cravat and unbuttoned her collar. The bloodied shirt that clung to her ribcage began to feel oppressive by comparison, and suddenly she wanted it gone, propriety be damned. Decorum had no place in this hellish nightmare.

Erik stilled as she began to unbutton her waistcoat and shirt. When it came time to peel the garments from her torso, however, he moved to assist her, flinging the damp and soiled fabric over the side of the tub.

Christine looked down at her chest. The bindings were still there, wrapped tightly around her breastbone, and they were soaked through with blood as well. Again she felt like Lady Macbeth, forever trying to rid herself of that stain of guilt:  _Out, damned spot!_

Her fingers moved to unfasten the pin at her back that held the bindings. Erik inhaled sharply, hesitating only a moment before his fingers supplanted hers. He removed the pin and began to unravel the strips of linen from her breast, the surrounding water turning a darker red as he went.

At last he stripped away the final band of fabric, baring her skin to the cleansing warmth of the bathwater. An immense weight rose from her chest, and she exhaled deeply, allowing herself to lean back into Erik as he tossed the sodden bindings away. He sucked in another breath, but he was quick to resume his work with a fresh washcloth and a gentle touch.

She gave herself over to him. He scrubbed her back and shoulders, her collarbone and sternum, her hands and arms. He guided her head back to submerge it in water, and then he washed her hair, too, his lithe fingers massaging her scalp until she thought that she might very well fall asleep right there.

It was when he pulled her head back to rinse her hair that she first made eye contact with him, peering up out of a face-frame of ruddy water. He stared right back, unblinking. He looked weary and loving and sympathetic, but there was no mistaking the restrained longing that she also saw there. Something stirred faintly in the pit of her stomach.

Perhaps it was unfair, then, that she should decide to unbutton and slip off her trousers next, but they were the last barrier between her and the purgative release that she needed. When they at last joined the pile of sopping clothes on the floor, she lay back against Erik's chest once more and let the water dissolve the last of the stain on her skin. He kept his arms curled around her midsection, his broad hands splayed across her bare stomach. They did not wander, even though she would have let them, in that moment. She felt a new connection to him now, a shared strand of suffering; she hated that it had to exist, but it reminded her of their mutual strength. She was a survivor, and he would not let her forget that.

Christine began to stir as the water grew cold. Erik picked up on the nonverbal cue with ease, as was becoming commonplace in their interactions. He stood, the water pouring off of his clothes, and fanned out a towel to serve as a privacy screen while she rose from the tub. She wrapped it snugly around her torso and stepped out onto the cold floor.

"Go and dress," he said. "I shall change and be out shortly."

In the bedroom, she shucked her wet drawers and slipped into the clean undergarments and nightdress from Meg. The clothes were snug but comfortable, though she found herself missing the freedom of movement inherent in the men's clothing she had worn.

When all was said and done, she still felt empty inside, but it was no longer a suffocating emptiness. She would survive.

At length she was joined by her companion, who had opted to bypass nightclothes entirely. Meg, bless her heart, had pulled together an ensemble not unlike what he usually wore, though the trousers and tailcoat were too short, with the jacket pulled tightly across his shoulders.

He approached her with an air of shyness completely uncharacteristic of him. Even in her weakened state, she could feel the shift of power to her corner once again. "You ought to rest," he said. "I will be just across the hall, and I will call on you in the morning. We will talk then about what I have learned of our...situation."

She shook her head in protest. It felt like further manipulation, what she did next, but the fact of the matter was that she was simply terrified to be alone. That yearning to be needed: it was Erik's own Achilles' heel. She slid the too-tight jacket off his shoulders and pulled him over to the bed, where she slid under the covers and tugged at his sleeve until, wide-eyed and powerless to resist, he joined her.

Beneath the sheets, Christine curled up against him and wrapped his arm around her waist. She was already half asleep when he sighed, his outgoing breath a kiss of warm air on the back of her neck. "When this is all over," he whispered, "I shall move heaven and earth to repay you."


	14. Duet

Christine woke to the reassuring warmth of a palm at her hip, with splayed fingers tapping out a soft rhythm where her nightgown was pulled taut across her abdomen. She still lay on her side, facing the wall, as she had been when she fell asleep. Gradually, she became aware of the weighted dip in the mattress behind her, and of the steady breaths that grazed the back of her neck on each exhalation.

It should have been an entirely foreign sensation, but everything about it felt natural, as though her body and Erik's were two interlocking pieces that had been separated in a prior life.

The fingertips tapping away at her side varied in both frequency and duration of use, and she realized that they were playing a melody: a half note here; a group of eighth notes there; a series of thumb and pinky, perhaps an octave's width apart, climbing a scale in tandem. She wondered whether Erik's left hand was playing the accompaniment elsewhere on the bed.

It was with some reluctance that she stirred, prompting him to cease his movements against her skin. When she rolled over to face him—slowly, for every part of her body was sore—he fully retracted his hand. The unravaged corner of his mouth curled back in an awkward and apologetic near-smile.

"Perhaps you did not intend to wake to this face," he said, "but it seemed a lesser offense than leaving you to wake alone."

She was glad to find him there, and she very nearly expressed her gratitude by pressing her mouth to his. Then she recalled where she was, and her latent guilt surfaced enough to stop her. How could she ever explain her change of heart to Meg and Madame Giry? She had enough difficulty understanding it herself.

Instead, she signed,  _what song?_  and flexed her fingers against her hip in imitation of his earlier movements.

"Ah." His exposed left cheek colored slightly. "Mozart's piano concerto No. 20, in D minor."

She smiled appreciatively, but her face fell as a thought occurred to her, and it was certainly not lost on him. "What is it?" he asked. "No; wait." He slid off the bed and moved to a small writing desk in the corner of the room, finding there some stationery and a fountain pen that he filled with ink. He brought pen and paper to her in the bed, perching on the edge of the mattress while she sat up cross-legged to write.

_You need music_.

" _You_  are all I need," he murmured reassuringly. "Every morning that I see you wake is an incalculable blessing."

She had trouble believing that, as flattering as it was, and she gave him a pointed look that said as much. He needed to play music almost as much as he needed to breathe in oxygen.

He sighed. "Consider it a hiatus, and do not concern yourself with it any longer. Our safety is paramount."

It was only a small comfort to reassure herself that he would pick up an instrument soon enough, because what of his composing? She could not forget how dependent it had been on her voice.  _You alone can make my song take flight._

Could either of them ever be whole again?

He stood and disappeared into the bathroom, returning with an armful of his damp clothing from the previous night. "I ought to at least make it look as though I have slept in my room," he told her on his way to the door. "I shall fetch you breakfast. What would you like? Tea?"

_Coffee_ , she signed, pretending she did not notice the way his eyebrow rose in surprise and then furrowed in disapproval. She was still tired and sore and out of sorts, and she would drink a whole pot of the stuff if she pleased.

Her resolve must have been apparent. "As you wish, my dear," came Erik's light reply, and he slipped out into the hall, leaving her to dress for the day.

Meg had left her a frock of royal blue silk, fastened in front with a column of mother-of-pearl buttons from throat to abdomen. It had a high collar that hid the ugly ring of bruises around her throat. It fit her better than the nightgown had, and the color was flattering. The corset was an ordeal with her still-sore finger, but she managed to lace it on her own this time, and the bustle...well, suffice it to say, she had not missed that contraption.

Christine regarded herself in the mirror afterward. She still looked pale and morose, but otherwise she did not entirely dislike what she saw there. Erik had been right; the haircut highlighted her neck and jaw and cheekbones in all the right places. The dress drew out the blue of her irises even more.

She was sitting placidly at the writing desk when Erik returned with a tray, and he briefly faltered at the sight of her, his lips parting in response. "I admit," he said as he placed the tray before her, "I had grown accustomed to seeing you in men's clothing."

He watched as she stirred fresh milk into her coffee and sipped at it eagerly, pausing only to butter a roll that she began to chew between sips. She could sense that he wanted to talk, and she prayed that he would wait to address the things that she could not think about right now, for she might never get her appetite back once he started.

He did extend her that courtesy. It was only after she finished and assured him that, yes, she had eaten enough that he came out with it. "I believe that we were followed to Carlotta's flat," he announced, "at least from the opera house and perhaps even from the hotel." She blinked, waiting for further explanation.

"That cab was so close to her flat that it was practically waiting for us. But it was not hers; when we passed her coach house, I saw the coachman retiring his horses for the night." He scowled and began pacing the short length of the room. "I ought to have been suspicious from the outset. I was not in my right mind. That insufferable woman!"

He paced in silence for another minute, and she let him cool off, knowing that he would continue eventually. "I believe that they want me alive," he finally said.

She looked up sharply. Surely he must be mistaken? Her brain could not conceive of any reason why they should want to kill her but spare him.

"It may sound ridiculous," he conceded, "but they have never carried guns. Why would they not just  _shoot_  me if they were so intent on ending my life? No, only hands and knives have been wielded against me so far, and those men last night tried to bind my wrists. Who binds the wrists of a dead man, Christine?" He reached out to brush a crumb from the corner of her mouth, and she flushed. "After I dispatched the first, I tried to question the second, and he spat in my face. I had no choice but to incapacitate him then, for I knew that I had no time to lose while you were in danger."

She picked up the pen.  _That man intended to kill me._

He gave her a mournful nod and a quiet reply. "That I cannot explain. Perhaps they did not recognize you, or perhaps they thought that you were no longer needed with my capture in sight."

_Are the others dead?_  she wrote.

"No."

The silence that followed was thick, and she found that she could not meet his gaze. His hand came down to blanket hers. "You may think me callous for saying so, but I do not mourn the death of the man who tried to take you from me." He cleared his throat, but his next words still came out hoarsely. "And, I am extraordinarily proud of you."

Surprised, she did look up at him then, but he had already released her hand and was moving for the door. "Your friend intends to call on you soon," he said, "but perhaps you might prefer to join her downstairs instead? The change of scenery might do you some good."

She agreed, in the end, if only out of curiosity: she had long waited to see Meg's new home. It was only when they found her friend in the sitting-room that Christine noticed what had been obscured by nightclothes the night before: the small, rounded swell of Meg's abdomen that strained against the lavender silk of her frock. Her mouth fell open, and she looked to her friend for confirmation.

Meg gave her a bashful smile. "I  _did_  plan to tell you," she said, "but  _Maman_  insisted that such matters are too delicate for regular correspondence, and that I should wait until our next visit to Paris."

Christine enveloped her in a giddy hug, unsure of whether it was a curse or a blessing that she could not squeal in that moment. It was likely a blessing for Erik, who looked uncomfortable enough as it was to bear witness to such matters, let alone in the company of a fiery young woman who actively disliked him.

Her manners did not suffer in spite of her loathing. "Good morning, Monsieur…?" She trailed off, looking to him expectantly.

He hesitated, and his tone was clipped. "Erik."

"Indeed? Well, Monsieur Erik, I hope that you had a pleasant night's rest and found the accommodations to your liking." Her voice was so overly saccharine that even a bystander would have picked up on the false interest. Christine winced.

"Ah, quite pleasant," said Erik, unfazed. "The view was exceptional." His gaze flicked to Christine, and she blushed. "I thank you especially for loaning your husband's attire, ill-fitting though it may be. I am afraid that our room at the  _Hotel Augusto_ may be compromised, and as such, we may not be able to retrieve our luggage."

Meg's face brightened. "Oh, but the  _Augusto_  is one of my Alessandro's hotels! He owns several." With a sly smile, she added, "Allow me your room number and a few hours, and I shall have your things brought to the house with the utmost discretion."

The half-shell mask did not hide the flicker of astonishment that crossed his face. "In that case, signora, I thank you again. I am...in your debt." It sounded as though it pained him to say the words, and Christine bit back a smile.

"Then you will not mind when I ask for a full account of how you and my dearest friend have come to be here, and in such great peril," she replied. "But first, I will send a messenger to the hotel. Please, have a seat; it will only take a moment."

Erik and Christine obeyed, sitting a respectable distance apart, and waited for her return. Erik's gaze kept flitting to the grand piano in the corner of the room, and Christine's spirits lifted at the sight. Perhaps he would not have to wait long after all.

Once Meg had been apprised of the situation, it was agreed that the fugitives would stay at least two more nights while they worked out their next steps and gave "poor Christine," as Meg labeled her, a reprieve. She did not wish to be considered weak, but she was secretly glad for the delay. She was starting to doubt whether she could, in fact, continue to follow Erik, and she needed more time to process that unsettling thought.

When at last all necessary arrangements had been made, Meg rose slowly to her feet and beckoned to the piano. "Go on," she said to Erik. "You have been shamelessly flirting with it for the past hour. I am going upstairs to rest." She squeezed Christine's hands on her way to the door and left them alone.

Erik's eyes were positively gleaming. He shot to his feet and offered her a hand. "Come," he said, and he pulled her over to sit on the bench with him. "Now, what do you know how to play?"

She found it odd that he should suppose she could play anything on the piano, but she had, in fact, tinkered with the instrument enough in her life to work out a few simple melodies with her right hand. Of course, they were nothing to befit the ears of a musical genius. She had begun to curl her fingers over a handful of keys in the upper register, but now she hesitated.

"Christine," he intoned. "It can be ' _Frere Jacques_ ,' for all I care. Just give me something to go on."

She straightened at that. Was he going to accompany her? Intrigued, she willed her stiff fingers to move, coaxing a sparse and timid version of her favorite folk song from the keys.

He nodded approvingly as she played. "' _Kristallen den Fina_ ' does seem to be our song, hmm?"

Without waiting for an answer, he placed his broad hands on the instrument and joined her. It was not the same version he had played several nights prior, when he had sung for her; this accompaniment was tailored to add a rich depth of sound to the melody that she was plunking out. Occasionally his hand would softly abut hers, and once it even crossed over hers to add a harmony in the upper register. All of it, she knew, was improvised, and she felt a sensuous thrill from the way his lithe fingers danced around her and folded her notes into his arrangement.

It did not feel the same as when she had sung with him. Nothing, she suspected, could ever rival that. But they were still making music, raw and pure and nearly effortless, and it was both satisfying and cleansing. She felt even more that strange pull that she always had: a hook wrapped firmly around her insides, reeling her toward him.

When they finished, having wordlessly reached the same natural conclusion, she looked up at him. His eyes shone. "Thank you," he said, and she was almost certain that he would have kissed her had their privacy been guaranteed.

* * *

Dinner was even more awkward than the sitting-room discussion. With Christine mute, it fell to Erik and Meg to make conversation: no small feat when the latter still looked like she wanted to eviscerate her unwelcome guest. On top of that, Erik seemed to be pushing his food around with convincing skill rather than actually eating it. Christine hoped that their hostess had not noticed. The only positive note of the evening thus far had been the return of their luggage; Erik had sped off to change almost immediately.

They had nearly gotten through the soup course when the butler murmured something into Meg's ear. Her eyes widened. " _Maman_  is home," she said. "She mustn't be caught off guard by your presence. I shall go and talk to her; you stay and dine."

Erik and Christine watched her bustle out of the dining room, the butler at her heels, and then set their spoons down simultaneously. They exchanged glances. There would be no eating now, not with such awkward unpleasantry ahead of them.

It was a good five minutes before Meg returned, and Madame Giry was with her, stiff and poised as ever in her utilitarian black frock. Erik sprang to his feet—whether out of politeness or fear, Christine was not sure.

When Christine had last seen the elder woman, she appeared to have aged a good five years. Now, however, there was something more at ease in the way she carried herself. Even her dark hair was piled less severely atop her head. Perhaps it was Italy that had brought about the positive change, but Christine suspected that, more than anything, it was the newfound distance from the Opera Populaire.

That said, Madame Giry now regarded Erik with pursed lips and a glare that could have cut steel.

"Go on," he intoned. "I will not stop you."

It took her four swift strides to reach him, and then she slapped him, hard, across the face. The impact knocked his mask askew, and he straightened it. "Anything else, madame?"

Even as she scowled, her eyes began to water. "You betrayed my trust!" she cried, with an uncharacteristic quiver to her voice. "You took my hard-earned sympathy and discretion, and you twisted them into nothing but death and mayhem!" She took a deep breath, a clear effort to regain control of her faculties. "You have forever tainted the place I held most dear. How am I to forgive you for that, monsieur?"

His eyes were downcast, his exposed cheek pink—though whether from shame or the elder woman's blow, it remained unclear. Christine had scarcely ever seen him so humbled. "I do not expect that of you, madame, but I will offer my apologies for everything that transpired if you let me."

She scoffed. "Such empty words. You do not even know the extent of what you ought to atone for! Why, it would not surprise me in the slightest were you unaware that  _I_ was the unlucky one designated to speak with Signor Piangi's mother after she watched her son die from the third row of the auditorium!"

Erik and Christine stared at her in shocked silence. Christine looked to Meg, who nodded solemnly. "She had traveled from Sicily to surprise him," the blonde said. "It was the first time that she had ever left the island. Oh!" Her hand flew to her mouth, and they all turned to look at her. "The footman I sent to the hotel this afternoon—he reported that there were three Sicilian men who checked in yesterday and disappeared this morning, without ever paying their bill."

Erik's jaw tensed, and he turned back to Madame Giry. "You must tell us everything you know, madame," he demanded. Just like that, he had apparently shucked off any shame or remorse that had begun to overtake him. Christine hoped that it was more out of concern for her safety than it was his insatiable quest to track down their pursuers.

"You no longer make the rules, monsieur," the older woman snapped back. "I shall comply for Christine's benefit, but first I will rest. I am weary from traveling. In the morning you will detail  _exactly_  what has befallen this poor girl, and then I will tell you what I know."

"We cannot afford to waste another  _minute_ ," he growled.

"You can, and you shall. Goodnight, monsieur." Madame Giry crossed to Christine and lightly clasped her shoulders. "It is good to see you again, dear. I only wish it were under better circumstances."

* * *

Thoughts of Piangi's mother haunted her that night.

It was horrifying to think about, what the woman must have witnessed; Christine could not even begin to imagine how she must have felt. She wondered whether the revelation would have any impact on Erik, perhaps the one man incapable of comprehending a mother's love for her son.

But more than anything, she wondered about the mother of the man whom she had killed.

She lay in bed, crying off and on, for an hour before she finally put on her slippers and padded across the hall to rap on Erik's door.

When it opened, she saw that the lights were dimmed and he was still dressed, minus his tailcoat and hat. His face betrayed his surprise. "Christine. Is everything all right?"

She shook her head and moved in to embrace him, seeking solace against his chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see an uncorked bottle and a near-empty glass of red wine on his writing desk. She heard the door close behind her, and then his arms pulled her in tighter. "You cannot sleep?"

She shook her head and, without breaking their embrace, began edging toward the bed. He inhaled sharply.

" _Christine_." There was a note of desperation in the way he breathed her name now, and he gently pushed her away so that he could see her face. "I do not wish to see you distraught, but...remaining so close to you...I cannot…" His eyes were pleading, and he turned out his palms in surrender. "I am but a man. You must understand that."

It sent a thrill coursing through her, that he should still desire her after everything that had transpired. If she left, she would likely drown in her own self-loathing; if she stayed, then he would worship her. In the absence of other means of comfort, the choice was overwhelmingly and selfishly and recklessly obvious.

She nodded in response: yes, she understood quite well. Then she took his hand and led him all the way to the bed.

He was rendered speechless as she pulled back the covers and slid beneath them. She stared up at him, waiting, until he hesitantly lifted the bedclothes and stretched out next to her. For some time they lay side by side, eyes locked, breaths weighted.

For all his powers of seduction, she realized, he did not know what to do with her now that he actually had her.

Despite her raging need, she was a mere novice herself, equally uncertain of how to proceed. She did not want to  _think_ ; she wanted to give herself over to him as she had in the bath the night before, to have him assault her senses until the events of the past twenty-four hours evaporated from memory.

It was too difficult and too dark to free her arm from beneath the sheets, so she found his palm and pulled it toward her, nestling her other hand within it. She signed the letters there, slowly and distinctly, so that he would feel each one and there would be no doubt as to her intentions:  _Touch me._

He sucked in a breath of air, his hand curling tightly around her fist. "You have had a shock. What you are asking...I cannot imagine that it is what you truly want." He released her, guiding her arm back to her side of the bed. "These are things to be shared between husband and wife, and we—I—" He trailed off, uncharacteristically flustered.

It was almost endearing, the way he cleaved to the sanctity of marriage despite the bevy of sins he had accumulated over time. Even after he had killed a man onstage and abducted her, he had somehow expected there to be a wedding. Well, she could not give him that. Certainly not now, and not in the foreseeable future. She felt some guilt over taking advantage of him, but the bridge was crossed.

She reached for his hand again, but this time she lifted it to one of her breasts and held fast.

He groaned, whispering a strangled "Christine" even as he began to knead the small mound of flesh beneath the fabric of her nightdress. When his thumb grazed the sensitive tip, her head fell back open-mouthed, and her fingernails curled fiercely into the back of his hand. His eyes widened. Had she blinked, she would have missed how quickly his expression darkened from awe to hunger.

Erik slid his hand across her sternum and up to her neck, treading lightly over the bruises there, mapping the dip in her throat, the curve of her jaw. She closed her eyes. Long, powerful fingers threaded through the hair at the side of her head, wrapping around the back of her skull to pull her in, and his lips began to ply hers with soft, exhilarating pressure.

He tasted like wine. She drank him in, meeting every sweep of his bloated lips with her own, letting her tongue dart out to tease his. How had she ever doubted that her body would know what to do? It moved of its own accord now, rendering her thoughts and feelings an inconsequential thing of the past.

The bed began to shift, and she was slowly pushed back against the mattress, the hard line of his body rolling over to pin her there, his arm arcing over her to anchor itself on the far side of her torso. His kisses deepened. Her hands fluttered at his throat, tugging at his collar, working loose the cravat. As soon as she freed the tie from his neck, he thrust a hand under the hems of both her nightdress and chemise.

His large palm skated up her still-clothed thigh and hip. She gasped into his mouth when cool fingers found the waistband of her drawers and skimmed along the exposed skin just above it, and when his lips pulled hers back into a heated dance, she was certain that she felt a flash of a smile.

She was half tempted to conduct a waistband expedition of her own, but then his hand was on her stomach and sliding up her ribs and  _oh_ , the rasp of his callused skin against her bare breast was the single most wondrous and intoxicating thing she had ever felt. She arched into him, forcing the separation of their mouths, and his lips quickly moved to trail along her jaw and up to her ear to murmur there.

"Oh, my Christine." His voice was low and sultry, laced with admiration. "What other secrets do you hold?"

He withdrew his hand to tug at her hem. She sat up and he rose to his knees, pulling both nightgown and chemise over her head. Then she lay back against the pillow once more, bare from the waist up.

For a long moment Erik did not move, did not speak, only stared at her exposed form with parted lips as though the wind had been knocked out of him. She knew that the pale skin of her chest and stomach must glow white even in the darkness, the same way his mask did now. Still, it was nothing he had not seen in the bath the night before—unless he had been so gentlemanly as to avert his gaze the entire time? She could not read the emotion in his face, and it was unsettling.

The moment grew too long for comfort; she began to feel self-conscious. She reached for his arm, intending to pull him back to her, but he snatched it away. "I cannot do this," he moaned. "You are too beautiful, too pure. How could I pollute such virtue with such rotten, twisted flesh?" With fingers curled like bestial claws, he gestured toward his face. "This is a body ravaged by sin and torment, and I will not drag you down into the depths of Hell with it!"

The strange thing was, Christine understood. After all, had she not chosen to spare Meg from her own torment the night before? And his was so much greater than she would ever be able to comprehend. But at the end of the day, he was not a monster but a man, and she a woman. There was balance in the way they functioned together; perhaps she could absorb some of his burden. At the very least, he had to know how little his deformed face affected her now. If anything, she was starting to recall it with fondness, for it was an integral part of him.

It seemed nearly impossible to convey all of this  _with_  words, let alone without them. But she had to try, because if they stopped, then she would begin to feel the things she did not want to feel and to think about the dark things that lurked and flitted like ghouls in the back of her mind.

An idea came to her then, but oh, it carried with it so much risk! Dare she chance it?

Slowly, she rose so that she, too, knelt on the mattress, her knees nearly touching his bony ones. He regarded her with wary suspicion but did not move to intervene, not yet. She took a deep breath and readied her shaking hands. The third time was the charm, was it not?

In a flash of movement, she tore both mask and wig from his person and tossed them over the side of the bed, her hands returning to capture his face before he could react. Without hesitation, she pressed her lips to the gnarled and distended flesh that resembled a cheek.

Erik gasped, and his hands clamped down on hers, but he did not pull away. For a moment it was an echo of when she had kissed him in his lair and startled him into stillness, except now her lips mapped the discolored ridges and furrows alongside his misshapen nose, across his cheekbone, and over his eyebrow. She kissed every last bit of distorted flesh, and she did so fervently. As lips and tongue swept over the puckered skin beneath his ice-blue eye, she felt wetness and tasted salt.

She would not begrudge him his emotional catharsis, but neither would she let him cast her away as he had in the underground. When her mouth found his again, she moved her hands to his collar and held fast, pulling him flush against her. A small moan surged from his throat.

And then those broad hands were on her bare back, shocking her with their iciness. She arched into him again. This time, she felt a peculiar hardness pressing into her abdomen, and she might have been more startled to realize what it was had he not begun to lean forward, lowering her until she was pinned to the bed. He pulled back just long enough to run his splayed hands over her breasts and down her ribcage and stomach, and then his lips returned to hers with even greater fervor.

Oh, this— _this_ was what Christine had always known that it would be, what she could never admit to herself that she wanted, from the moment when he had extended a hand to pull her through the frame of her dressing-room mirror: a building, yearning, desperate passion that spun them higher and higher until they finally leapt from the edge of reason, destined either to soar or to plummet, but bound to each other either way.

She began tugging at fabric, pawing deliriously at buttons, until he was freed of his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. She caught a glimpse of the still-healing scar on his right side, now dulled reddish-purple, before he returned to hovering over her on the mattress.

His mouth alighted on hers briefly before it skated over her chin and worked its way down her throat and sternum. It found the tip of her right breast just as his fingers closed on the left one, and she bucked beneath him, suddenly relieved by her inability to produce sound.

He lavished her with attention there, using suction and tongue and gentle caress. Heat was pooling between her legs. She anchored her fingers within the sparse gray hair on the back of his head, and to her surprise, he did not protest.

At length, while he continued to tug at peaked flesh with eager lips, his hand left her other breast to skate down the entire length of her body as far as it could reach. Once it caressed the muscled swell of her calf, it traveled up and inward until it was grazing the length of her inner thigh, with only a scrap of white linen serving as a barrier to her skin. Her mouth fell open as he slowly made his way toward that most intimate place on her person.

They both shuddered when his deft fingers worked their way through the subtle opening in her drawers and made contact with willing flesh. A single digit began to skim along the clefted folds there, up and down, driving her mad with anticipation. Then it dipped lower, where it nudged that most sensitive bud, and she gasped out her pleasure.

_Oh_ , she liked that. She liked that very much.

He lingered there indeterminately, his finger delivering soft, sure strokes to elicit a string of tiny gasps from between her lips. At one point her eyes flickered open just long enough to glance down at him, and she saw that his gaze was fixed intently on her face, even as he introduced his thumb to generate slow, tantalizing circles that made her squirm beneath him. He was  _studying_  her, she realized—gauging her reaction to every subtle maneuver or application of pressure. That knowledge only fanned the flames that threatened to consume her, for he was nothing if not a master of study.

The tingling, sparking warmth between her legs rapidly intensified, and then she was exploding, bucking against his hand, seeing white-hot lightning bolts even with her eyes closed. Her mouth fell open in a soundless cry.

Her consciousness flitted in and out of her body for several seconds, or perhaps even several minutes—she could not say. When she managed to open her eyes again, she was breathless and Erik was lying bare-faced and bare-chested beside her, eyes glassy with desire. He said nothing, only pressed his lips tenderly to hers. She was unable to keep from smiling into his mouth as she kissed him back.

He indulged her in this reprieve, this smattering of fluttering kisses and playful nips, for a while. His fingertips trailed lazily along her bare back and arm. It was only when mouth and fingers started pressing into her harder and more fervently that she felt the first stirrings of anxiety.

Distantly, in the back of her mind, Christine knew what had yet to happen. When Erik hooked two fingers into either side of her waistband and tugged the drawers down over her hips, that reality was brought into sharp focus.

She lifted her legs so that he could slide the garment down and off of her ankles. Her self-consciousness began to sneak back in; her heart thundered within her chest. Perhaps he sensed her nervousness because he was quick to cover her body with his own, his lips at her throat, his hands roaming and touching in all of the ways that he now knew she liked. "You are stunningly beautiful," he murmured against the delicate skin of her neck.

There came a moment when his touch was noticeably absent from her body, replaced by the clink of a belt buckle and a rustle of fabric. He held her gaze all the while, with one hand anchored beside her left shoulder. How was it that he, with the ruined and exposed face, was now so confident while she was beginning to tremble?

"Christine." Not until he said her name did she realize that she had squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them and sought out his mismatched irises. "Is this truly what you want?"

She raised a hand to his cheek and stroked the gnarled skin there. There was only a flicker of fear in his expression before he sighed into her hand. Why,  _why_  was this suddenly so intimidating after all that she had endured these past two weeks?

It was the notion of relinquishing control, she realized. Of potentially giving him another way to wield power over her. Of letting him access a part of her that no one else had ever known, and hoping that things turned out for the best.

But still, she ached for him. That would not change if she stopped him now; it would only become more unbearable. To regain control, she first had to surrender it.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and crushed her lips to his.

There was a rumble low in his throat. He kissed her so hard that she thought her lips might bruise; their tongues thrashed and mingled. His fingers once again found that sensitive locus between her thighs, amplifying the desire that already coursed through her veins. It was not enough now; she needed more. Her grip on his back and shoulders tightened, pleading.

His hand pulled away and was replaced by a warm hardness. It began to press into her, minutely at first, a foreign sensation of uncomfortable stretching and fullness. Erik carefully watched her expression all the while.

He pushed in farther, and then it hurt: a sharp, burning pain that would have made her cry out had she been able. He stopped abruptly, and she realized that her nails were digging into his shoulder blades. Her eyes watered and she could not look at him, not yet.

He was still for a long moment, and the pain began to recede, replaced by a dull throb. "Christine?" he asked. Her gaze finally flicked to his face, where concern was clearly warring with barely restrained lust, and she nodded. With a shuddering sigh, he buried himself in her completely.

She tensed and gripped his shoulders once more, wishing that her body would grow accustomed to the painful invasion with more expedience. Erik remained patient, lowering his head to kiss her face, her neck, her collarbone. "Oh, my angel," he whispered against her skin.

Again his fingers moved downward to bring her pleasure, and it stirred something within her, that primal need that she had ignited by ripping away his mask. Her hips shifted, seeking friction, and he groaned.

As he began to move within her, that incredible fullness became no longer an intrusion, but rather a source of slowly building pleasure: nothing as intense as what he had coaxed with his fingers earlier, but something deeper, more significant. She felt intrinsically linked to him, this man who was the counterpoint to her voice and her soul and now, her body.

His pace increased and he was breathing heavily, the smooth side of his face pressed to her cheek as he moved. She could not say what possessed her to do it, but she released him just long enough to shift their heads so that it was the distorted side touching her skin. Her arms encircled his neck, and she lifted her hips to wrap her legs around him.

The new, more intimate angle made both of them gasp. He drove into her more solidly now, his fingers positioned just above where they were joined, stroking her faster and faster. She could hardly withstand the barrage of sensations. She could feel it again, that building of delicious, crackling tension. Her lips formed his name even though no sound came out.

This second jolt of pleasure nearly split her in two. She felt it in every nerve and muscle of her body, and she spasmed around him, gasping, clawing at the sheets beneath her. She heard him cry out and felt him go stiff against her on one deep, final thrust, but her eyes were closed and she saw nothing but stars.

She did not move until Erik collapsed beside her, pulling the covers over them both before he curled an arm around her waist. With her last remaining shred of energy, she placed her hand against the raw, distorted flesh of his face. There it remained, even when she succumbed to sleep, her mind as free and clear as it had been the first time he came to her as the angel of music.


	15. Cosa Nostra

It was a chill that woke her in the middle of the night.

Christine lay on her side, facing the window, and realized with groggy irritation that the draft she felt, combined with the too-clear pattering of rain outside, meant she would have to get up. She gradually recalled where she was, and it struck her as odd that Erik had not already risen to close the window himself.

She turned over in the bed, half expecting to find him gone. What she  _did_  find, however, was far more surprising: the phantom of the opera, unmasked and unclothed, sound asleep.

He was on his side, the distorted half of his face sunken into the pillow, and she wondered whether he had conditioned himself to sleep that way. His bottom arm lay tucked underneath his bare torso, while the top was bent at the elbow, his pale forearm stretching up toward the pillow, where the protracted fingers of his resting hand curved gracefully even in repose.

The covers did not quite reach his shoulders, and her eyes were drawn to the sharp, jutting lines of his collarbone. With a slight shudder, she considered how they might feel and taste against her lips as her tongue recalled the salt tang of his brow and cheekbone.

There was tension in the pull of his forehead and the set of his jaw, almost a grimace, suggesting that perhaps he could not evade his demons even in slumber. His lips, however, parted as though having just released a small sigh; she hoped that some of his unease had escaped with it.

And his eyelashes! Had she ever really noticed that he  _had_ eyelashes? They were thin and oh so pale, kissing his tender under-eye skin like gossamer webs.

He was beautiful.

The wisps of ashen hair at his scalp fanned out every which way. She had been surprised by how soft and fine that hair was, and she now resisted the temptation to smooth it back. She did not wish to wake him, because she did not know what to expect from him now that they had stepped into this new, uncharted territory.  _The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn._

Christine sat up in bed, hugging the bedclothes tightly to her chest. She felt a secret thrill from the knowledge that both she and Erik were bare-skinned beneath the covers, but she could hardly cross the room that way. Thankfully, there was a spare quilt folded at the end of the mattress; she leaned over to grab it, wrapping it around her torso as she stepped out of the bed.

There was a faint, burning soreness between her legs as she padded over and closed the window. Part of her was stunned by what had transpired—by what  _she_  had incited. The other part of her had already accepted its inevitability and now reveled in the sheer  _relief_ of it: the surrender to temptation, for one, but namely that affirmation of life after so much death and darkness.

Whatever burgeoning sense of self she'd felt on the train to Florence earlier that week had begun to dissipate, and she had instead felt herself slipping away into black, empty obscurity. That frantic bout of passion with Erik had been a lifeline, and she would cling to it while she could. For now, she felt sated.

She gathered her discarded clothing and slipped into the adjoining bathroom, where she washed up with too-cold water before getting dressed. Her stomach rumbled as she did so, reminding her of how little she had eaten the day before. She groaned inwardly, for she had always found it a struggle to sleep on an empty stomach. Perhaps she could slip into the kitchen in hopes of finding a heel of bread.

Erik was, surprisingly, still asleep when she emerged. She slipped into her own room for her wrapper, securing the sash tightly about her waist, and then crept down the staircase.

Low amber light emanated from the kitchen, making her hesitate before she decided to step in. There she found Meg, in her lavender dressing-gown, standing at a heavy work table of light walnut. She was pouring a glass of milk from a ceramic pitcher trimmed in blue and gold, with lovely hand-painted olive branches fanning across its bulk. At the sight of Christine she started, nearly dropping the jug as her other hand came up to her breast. "Oh, goodness, you startled me," she said with a small giggle. She nodded toward the pitcher. "Come in. Would you like some?"

Christine nodded, crossing to sit on a wooden stool at the table while Meg filled a second glass. "Milk is all I ever want these days," she said. She smiled sheepishly, her hand coming to rest on her rounded abdomen as she pushed a glass of milk across the table. "That and beef. Between the two, I may have ingested an entire cow this week alone."

Christine offered a smile of acknowledgement between sips. She had already begun to feel better with some milk in her belly. When Meg dragged over a plate laden with slices of cold apple cake, Christine beamed at her with such swooning admiration that the blonde laughed. "I have not forgotten your fondness for sweets, you know. Help yourself."

The kitchen was quiet as they chewed. Meg's eyes kept darting across the table, the frown lines between her eyebrows crinkling. Christine knew that expression all too well and simply waited for the inevitable moment when her friend could no longer keep her mouth shut.

"You are strangely at ease with that man," she finally blurted out.

Christine hesitated, set down the remainder of her cake, and proceeded to finish chewing. It was not as though she could respond, anyway. She glanced around for something that she might write with or on.

Meg followed her gaze, her face lighting up in comprehension. She stood and started rummaging through shelves and cupboards. "I see the cook scribbling recipe notes all the time. There must be something around here that you can use. Ah! Here we are." She produced a dull pencil and a large scrap of butcher paper.

Christine set pencil to paper and paused. What could she even say?

_We understand each other_ , she eventually wrote,  _and he is keeping me safe_.

"From a threat that  _he_  is responsible for!" Meg protested. "And anyway, 'safe' is debatable when you are carried to my doorstep trembling and coated in someone else's blood. Christine! Have you forgotten all of the devastation that he caused? The man deserves to be in jail, at the very least."

Christine blushed and cast her eyes downward.  _I know_ , she scrawled. She pushed the paper toward Meg, who sighed and said, "But still you pity him. You and  _Maman_ both."

Well. Christine was hardly certain of Madame Giry's sympathy anymore—and understandably so. But what of herself? Was any of this pity?

_No_ , she replied.  _I want him to hold himself accountable for his actions. He cannot do that without an understanding of basic human decency and the value of life._

"And it is so very touching and magnanimous of you to show him those things. But he is still dangerous, love, and he cannot protect you forever." Meg drained the last of her milk and took her glass to the sink. "Let him go on without you," she called over her shoulder. "No one knows that you are here; you can stay and keep a low profile until you are forgotten about entirely."

As much as she enjoyed the travel, Christine had to admit that her current situation was quickly dragging her into a downward spiral, away from both the life and the self that she had known. The thought of a long reprieve soothed her. Erik was the only constant in her life, and with someone as prone to outbursts as he was, that knowledge was unsettling.

For the most part, though, he had remained even-keeled around her thus far. He had even left Carlotta unscathed. There was progress being made; she was sure of it.

But at what cost?

She bit her lip and scratched the pencil against the butcher paper one last time.  _I will consider it_ , she wrote, and she meant it.

She considered going back to her own room when she returned to the guest wing; some forced separation might do them good. But then she thought of Erik, alone and unclothed beneath the covers, and of his warm mouth and cool, papery skin that smelled of citrus and herbs and soap. Her stomach churned with desire, and she almost hated herself for it. She tiptoed back to his room and slipped inside.

He was awake and standing in only his drawers and his white shirt, his fingers frozen on one of the top buttons as he watched her enter. The white shell mask was already back in place.

"Christine. I thought that—that you—" He swallowed. "I had nearly convinced myself that it was a dream."

She shook her head.  _Was hungry_ , she signed. She took only one step toward him before he folded her into his arms, his relief evident in the tenderness with which he handled her. His lips came down on hers, softly at first, then with increasing pressure as he maneuvered her toward the bed.

Ah, but he was hungry, too. Was it any wonder, when his body had decades of deprivation to make up for now? But she would let him have her, and gladly, for his eager touch was far preferable to being alone with her thoughts. It was not lost on her that the man she now relied on to erase those dark thoughts was the same one who had caused them in the first place.

He untied her sash and tugged off her dressing-gown without ever disrupting the heated exchange of their mouths; it set her insides aflame. She moved to take off his mask so that his lips might have more freedom of movement, but he halted her with a firm grip on her wrist. She pulled back, questioning.

"We are lucky that the porcelain survived your earlier efforts," he said, his tone gently admonishing. "Let us not repeat that carelessness, hmm?" He pulled the mask off himself and set it on the nightstand.

She was still staring at him, pleasantly stunned, when he returned to capture her bottom lip between his teeth. There was a light scrape of bone against flesh as he gently tugged at it; the sensation left her nearly ravenous. As he guided her onto the mattress, her hips surged upward, pressing into him with urgent need, eliciting a groan from the back of his throat.

His deft fingers found the opening of her drawers, and a single digit slipped into her where she was already slick with need. He sighed into her mouth. A second finger joined the first; she writhed and gasped beneath him until he suddenly withdrew his hand.

He entered her swiftly, leaving both of them clothed, her nightgown hitched up around her waist. There was some residual discomfort and she met him with a grimace, but then his lips found her throat as he began to rock against her, and she was lost to the world.

* * *

The guest room window was east-facing; Christine knew this because when she opened her eyes in the morning, she was nearly blinded, even with the curtains acting as a filter. She squeezed her eyelids shut once more and turned over in bed, wishing she had the vocal cords to grumble. Had it not just been raining?

There was a faint brush of cool skin against her lips, and she squinted. Erik peered back at her, his head nestled against his own pillow, the angry scars of his face largely buried but still unmasked. It was his thumb, she realized, that caressed her mouth. Instinctively, she kissed it.

His eyes shone, and his gaze flicked up to her hair with some amusement. She cringed inwardly, knowing how easily disheveled this new cut could become after a night in bed—and that was just while sleeping. She had been  _far_  more active against the pillow last night.

Oh, God. Did he think her a harlot?  _Was_  she a harlot?

He lay a palm on her hip as he leaned in and kissed her, and she decided that she might as well throw in her lot with hedonism because she could never reasonably expect herself to give up the sensuous rasp of those pillowy lips. She kissed back; she regretted nothing.

"Oh, Christine." He exhaled softly, his breath hot against her mouth. "I have never felt as complacent as I do in this moment. And I say that with a potential price on my head." Again he swept his lips against hers, and she fought to keep her mind lucid against the drug that was his touch. It would take only a roaming hand up her chemise for her to abandon all reason, she knew, yet they could not stay cocooned in this bed forever, as tempting as it was. It was daylight; there were risks.

Somehow, she managed to pull away and pantomime writing. She saw his shoulders sink ever so slightly, but then he was up and across the room, rifling through the contents of the desk for something that she could use. He seemed to recall his state of half-dress only a moment too late, returning to her with a sheepish expression as he handed over stationery and pen. "Excuse me while I dress," he said. He moved to collect his trousers from the back of the desk chair.

As he pulled the black wool over his long legs, Christine found herself fixated on the way the white linen of his drawers followed the curves of his slender backside. Despite their moments of intimacy, she realized, she had seen and felt very little of him. He glanced at her over his shoulder as he fastened his waistband, and she averted her eyes with a furious blush.

When he had dressed fully, he sat beside her on the edge of the mattress to see what she had written him.

_I ought to go. Madame Giry will expect to see us soon._

"Ah. Yes." He picked at a loose thread on the inside of his cuff. "I thought that perhaps we might bypass that whole situation entirely by slipping out the window and defecting to a remote location instead. Tell me, what do you know of Canada?"

She smiled and shook her head.  _I knew that you were afraid of her._

He frowned. "That woman knows more about me than any living soul," he replied, "and that gives her automatic power. It is a wonder that she did not have a run-in with the lasso in all that time at the Populaire." When Christine looked at him questioningly, he sighed. "I am not entirely unscrupulous, you know. I am well aware of the magnitude of her favors to me over the years."

A knot had wound its way through her stomach as he spoke of Madame Giry meeting the lasso. Christine wondered how he could be so cavalier about such a grim topic—but then, she supposed, his entire life was a grim topic. Perhaps that dark humor was a means of survival.

She was reminded of something that she had long wanted to ask him.  _Why the lasso?_ she wrote.  _Why not a gun?_

He scoffed. "Such a loud, vulgar thing. And as a method of incapacitation, a pistol is too imprecise, too unpredictable." He reached into his tailcoat and withdrew the thin Punjab lasso, running agile fingers along its length. "This, however, affords me the control that I desire: how much life to cut off, and how quickly. It is clean and quiet, and there is great skill and precision involved in its use."

He swiftly returned the weapon to its place and peered into her widening eyes. "A gun allows too much room for error," he continued. "It enables its owner to be reckless and impulsive. Detached. Perhaps I may seem detached to some, but you know as well as I do that taking a life with one's hands is, in fact, one of the most terribly intimate things that a person can experience." She swallowed, unable to look away from the intensity of his gaze. "No, the lasso is wielded with great intent. And I am never wasteful, my dear."

At this, she cast him a pointed look. He at least had the decency to look shamefaced. "No," he admitted quietly. "No, I suppose that is not entirely true." He stared down at his hands and was silent. She watched him carefully, wondering at the depth of his regret now, whether he had begun to view his actions in the context of lives taken instead of as mere lapses in judgment.

His words about the weaponry stuck with her, but perhaps not in the way that he had intended.  _Maybe I ought to carry a pistol_ , she wrote,  _for protection_. She did not think that she would be reckless and impulsive, and the idea of detachment was very attractive to her at the moment. _  
_

He frowned. "I do not think that would be a good idea."

_Then teach me how to defend myself._

He pursed his lips now, and she fancied that she could read this thoughts: he abhorred the idea of her having to defend herself at all, especially when he was with her, yet he could not deny that such an occasion might present itself when one already had—and quite horrifically at that.

"Fine," he said. "Before we leave here, I will demonstrate some maneuvers. But let us first find out who we are dealing with."

He opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hall. "All clear," he announced, beckoning her over, and she quickly slid off of the bed to collect her wrapper. "I shall see you at breakfast, my dear." He gave her another lingering kiss that made her insides bottom out, and then she scurried off to her room before she could be further tempted to stay.

There, Christine changed into a navy wool skirt and bodice from her luggage that a maid had been kind enough to press for her the day before. The outfit looked terribly plain, especially with such an elegant house as a backdrop, but at least it fit her correctly and was, in fact, women's clothing.

Erik was the only one at the breakfast table when she made her way downstairs; Meg appeared shortly after. " _Maman_  has already gone out for the day," she informed them regretfully. "She said that she would 'not sacrifice valuable time waiting for two lazy lie-abeds.' I expect that she will return for dinner." She pretended not to notice when Erik huffed from behind his teacup. "I am afraid that I have lots of tedious correspondence to catch up on. I trust that you can keep yourselves occupied?"

Erik raised an eyebrow at Christine; she instantly flushed. "I have a few ideas," he said to Meg, his flat tone betraying none of the mischief at which he was most certainly hinting. "Do enjoy your day, signora."

Meg stared at him, unamused, clearly trying to gauge his sincerity. "Indeed," she finally replied, voice clipped. "And you as well, monsieur."

He watched Christine as she finished breakfasting, his eyes gleaming all the while. By the time she removed the napkin from her lap, her heartbeat seemed to have doubled in speed and intensity. "Come," he said, and he offered her his arm.

It was with equal parts relief and disappointment that she found herself escorted to the sitting-room. He sat at the piano, his body practically vibrating with music awaiting release. "Would you like to join me?" he offered, but she shook her head; she would not hold him back this time. She wanted to observe.

Oh, she was not disappointed. He played Chopin and Mozart and Bach, as well as other melodies that she did not recognize, and he did so with such gorgeous fluidity that she could hardly believe that he and the instrument were two separate entities. She was content to sit on the loveseat and gradually close her eyes and listen.

There came a point when he concluded one song and she waited in the ensuing silence for him to begin the next, but instead she felt the brush of his fingertips along the tender dip of skin between her neck and right shoulder. "Your turn, my sweet," he murmured.

Confused, she let him escort her to the bench, where he encouraged her to try out a melody of her own. "I would offer to give you a violin lesson," he explained, "but we must not put any more undue stress on that mending finger of yours." He nodded toward the offending digit, which he had previously bound to the neighboring finger with what he said was surgical tape. She had not even bothered to question why said tape was in his possession.

They spent much of the day in the company of music and of each other, and it was so relaxed and lovely that even Christine grew to dread the return of Madame Giry. Indeed, the former ballet instructor did return for the evening meal, and it was as awkwardly solemn as any one of them might have expected.

Only when they had retired to the sitting-room for drinks afterward did she finally turn to Erik, her face stony and lips pursed. "Now," she said, "tell me everything."

It was a tall order, but he had already rehearsed once with Meg and was a man of eloquently few words to boot. He filled her in as succinctly as possible, starting with  _Don Juan_  but ultimately placing emphasis on their pursuers and little else. He was cautious with how much he said of Carlotta and Christine, and as he had with Meg previously, he avoided implicating Christine in the death of her attacker. She could have hugged him.

When all was said and done, Madame Giry remained silent for some time, staring intently at a fixed point on the floor. "Yes," she finally said. "I daresay it might be their doing."

"Then tell us what happened after  _Don Juan_ ," Erik demanded. Christine shot him a look of reproach; his voice softened as he muttered, "Please."

"I returned to the Opera Populaire the afternoon following the performance," she began. "There had been a ballet rehearsal scheduled, and though it could not be reasonably expected that anyone return to work that day, I suspected that some of the dancers might still attend.

"Besides my daughter, who insisted on coming, there were three of them: terrified young girls who had been watching from the wings as their friend was abducted and Signor Piangi was discovered."

At this, Erik bolted upright and stalked across the room. "Please continue," he said gruffly when they all stopped to watch him. He began to alternate between pacing and stopping to inspect the furniture, his mouth pulled back in a taut line.

"I tried to comfort them as best I could. By then you had returned to us safely, Christine, so I was at least able to assure them of that. It was then that Monsieur Firmin sought me out. He informed me that Signor Piangi's mother had appeared in his office, accompanied by a male relative who demanded an explanation for what had happened. He said that he and Monsieur Andre had led the pair to a spare office to wait, but that they were presently being mobbed by police and press, and would I please speak to Signora Piangi on their behalf?"

She shook her head in irritation, as though Firmin stood in her presence at that very moment. "He seemed to think that I understood better than anyone—present company excluded—what exactly had transpired. I suppose he was not wrong."

Erik did not meet her gaze. "Who was the male relative?"

"A cousin, I believe. Not much younger than I. He spoke French, but Signora Piangi...she did not speak at all."

"He said that she had not uttered a word since  _Don Juan_ ," Meg added. "I was in the meeting as well. He translated for her. She seemed quite frail; she was not terribly old, I imagine, but she had such arthritic fingers and tanned, weathered skin that she looked almost ancient."

"The climate, I suspect," said Madame Giry. No one remarked on how pale and rotund the woman's son was by contrast. Christine wondered how old he had been when he'd left the southern island. How had he even managed to do so, when his own mother had never left?

"What did you tell them?" Erik asked, his voice tight.

"That Ubaldo was a casualty of obsession and rivalry turned deadly." She regarded him unflinchingly as she spoke. "I told them of your conflict with the managers, with Carlotta, with the vicomte. I told them of your possession of the young soprano whom they had seen singing opposite their boy just before he died. And I spoke of how you were a man driven to self-hatred by a world that had cast you out." Here her voice wavered, and she stopped for a breath. "I should have seen it coming, should have prevented it. Oh, monsieur…" It was indeed pity that softened Madame Giry's face then. "You thought that she could save you."

Erik stopped moving about the room. His reply may have been directed at the elder woman, but his eyes were fixed on Christine. "She did save me," he said quietly, "and she continues to do so. But at great cost."

Christine evaded his gaze then. Could he possibly know that she was contemplating their separation?

"Forgive me," said Madame Giry, "but I must ask: if, as you say, you did not plan to kill Signor Piangi and infiltrate the performance...then what  _did_  you intend to do?"

His chest rose on a sharp inhalation, but he did not falter. "I wanted everyone to see—to  _hear_ —my opera in its entirety, to bask in the mellifluous voice of this angel, and to know that they had made a grievous error in casting us off."

Madame Giry eyed him warily. "And then…?"

His eyes found Christine's face once more but quickly darted away. "There was a trap door, positioned precisely where Christine was to stand for the final curtain call. I was to wait at the bottom with the corresponding lever, a soft landing, and an escape route."

She sucked in a shaky breath.

She had suspected, of course, that he had planned to take her. But until now, it had never been confirmed. Rather, her abduction had been linked, in her mind, to the desperate manner in which she had unmasked him before everyone.

"Madame," said Erik, pulling Christine from her thoughts. "Please. Was there more to this conversation with Piangi's family?"

She nodded. "The cousin demanded to know every last detail about you," she reported gravely. "He said that he had funeral arrangements and the safe return of Signora Piangi to see to, but that he considered this business unfinished."

"He said," Meg chimed in, "that you had incensed a powerful family, and that you would come to regret it. He made an offhand comment about 'reassigning threats.'" She furrowed her eyebrows. "I got the sense that there was much left unsaid."

Erik retreated so deeply into his thoughts that his face went vacant for a time. "Did he say where in Sicily they resided?" he finally asked, trancelike.

"Palermo," said Madame Giry.

He nodded distractedly and sat back down, propping an elbow on the chair arm so that he could rest his face against his closed hand. "I wonder," he said slowly, but he did not elaborate. The three women watched him, waiting.

It was Meg who broke first. "Monsieur?"

He snapped out of his reverie as though it had never happened. "I have heard rumors of a secret association in Sicily, one that specializes in protection rackets. That is," he added, when Christine looked at him questioningly, "they gain power and wealth by ensuring the safety of landowners and their crops. My understanding is that the racketeering was born of both need and defiance after mainland Italy annexed the land on the island a few decades ago. Now, its presence is allegedly so pervasive that its members have come to infiltrate even the local government and twist it to their purposes, while simultaneously downplaying the organization's own existence."

He got to his feet once more, crossing to the piano before he turned on his heels to address them again. "They call themselves  _Cosa Nostra_. Around here, I believe they are known as the  _mafia_. Their specialty, their  _industry_ , is violence."

"Alessandro has spoken of them once or twice," Meg confirmed. "He said the death rate in Sicily is unconscionably high."

"And you think they are the ones coordinating these attacks?" asked Madame Giry.

"It adds up," he replied hoarsely. He seemed unable to look any of them in the eye now. "If Piangi had a familial connection to someone in a position of command, then that individual would have a vast pool of resources at his disposal."

"What will you do?" asked Meg.

He shook his head. "There is nothing I  _can_  do, if it is true. I am outmatched." He did look to Christine then, and not for the first time in recent days, he appeared genuinely, painfully sorry. The gravity of his words began to set in.

The three of them were startled into stillness by the sudden murmur of male voices drifting from the direction of the foyer. Meg's eyes went wide. "Alessandro!"

"He was not expected back for several days," remarked Madame Giry, looking equally alarmed.

"If my presence would disturb him, I can disappear," said Erik, "though the servants have already seen me."

Meg shook her head. "It is not my husband I fear, but rather the company he keeps." She turned to Christine now, her face tight with panic. "Oh, forgive me, Christine; I did not think to mention which of Alessandro's friends had accompanied him on his hunting trip, and, well, you may have forgotten who it was who introduced me to him in the first place."

Christine's stomach sank; she had not forgotten. But even if she had, his sudden appearance in the doorway beside Meg's husband would have reminded her.

It was Raoul.


	16. Vicomte

Erik's position in front of the piano put him directly in the line of sight of the newcomers who appeared in the doorway. Christine caught only a glimpse of her former fiancé before he emitted a strangled roar and lunged across the room.

There was a sickening  _thwack_  as his fist connected with the base of Erik's jaw, just barely missing teeth. Erik staggered backward, one hand to his face, the other slamming onto the piano keys behind him, causing a loud and dissonant chord to echo throughout the room. Raoul rushed at him again, and Erik grabbed the vicomte's wrist, using the incoming momentum to spin the man around and twist his arm behind his back. "The first strike was free, monsieur le vicomte," he growled into Raoul's ear. "Do not expect a second."

There was a resounding  _click_  from the doorway. Christine looked over to find Meg's husband leveling a pistol at the men, and her stomach lurched as she realized that the hammer had been cocked.

Alessandro was tall and lean but solid, with a broad nose and a ruggedly handsome face framed by a thick crop of jet-black hair. His dark, flinty eyes glowered at the perceived intruder. "I know who you are, signor," he said in accented French, "and you will regret entering my home. Release him."

Meg rushed to her husband's side, gripping one of his arms in placation. "Please, Alessandro; the gun is not necessary."

Erik released Raoul with a small shove and straightened to his full height. "Believe me, signor, I have no desire to be in your home. I am here as a favor to  _her_." He nodded in Christine's direction, prompting both men to register her presence.

"Christine?" Raoul's wide grey eyes darted from her face to her hair and then back again. He had a mustache now; it made him look more like a distinguished stranger and less like the sweet, sandy-haired boy from the seaside. She could not help but notice the absence of a wedding ring.

"Monsieur Erik brought her to us two nights ago for aid," Meg explained. She lowered her husband's arm with gentle pressure, until the hand holding the gun dropped to his side. "The two of them were attacked. They are being pursued, possibly by the mafia. She was captured previously, and they"—she hesitated and swallowed—"they cut off her hair."

Raoul had not taken his eyes off of her, and now they widened considerably. He looked to Erik. "This is your doing," he said. "I demand an explanation."

"I owe you no such thing," Erik snapped.

The vicomte balled his hand into a fist as though aching for something else to punch, but in the absence of any readily available surface, he leveled his hand to point accusingly at Erik. "You should not be remotely  _near_  her!" he roared. "You have no right to be on the same  _continent_ as her, no right to exist as anything but a prisoner or a corpse!"

At this, Christine winced: first at the idea of Erik dead, and then at the guilt triggered by Raoul's impassioned words. He had risked his life to rescue her from the man whose bed she now shared. She could imagine him thinking the same thing that she had asked herself time and again:  _Then what was it all for?_

"Monsieur le vicomte," Madame Giry interjected, "let us sit and discuss this elsewhere. I do apologize for the shock, but we did not expect your return for several days and had yet to determine how to proceed."

"Yes, what happened?" Meg asked her husband.

"The others were called away on urgent business," he replied, "and game was scarce." He smiled down at the swell in his wife's abdomen, adding, "And you know I do not like to be away from you for long,  _mia cara_."

Christine felt a pang of anxiety at the sound of the endearment—it reminded her too much of  _il Gatto_ —but she could not help but be charmed by the way Alessandro's arm curled around Meg's shoulders as she leaned into him, beaming. They were an almost intolerably handsome couple, their affection obvious and effortless.

"Have you had supper?" Meg entreated. "Perhaps, gentlemen, there is enough of the cook's wonderful ham left over for sandwiches.  _Maman_  and I can get you up to speed while you eat."

"Fine," said Raoul, who had not stopped glowering at Erik. "Better you than him." He began to move into the hall with the others, but when he saw how Christine made no move to join them, he faltered, his lips curling in disgust. "Are we just going to leave her here with  _him_?"

"She will be fine," Meg assured him. "Perhaps the two of you can talk later tonight?" She shot Christine a pleading look, and Christine nodded readily. She could not  _actually_ talk, of course, but she would have done anything in that moment to smooth things over. She could feel the tug of war materializing between the two men once more, and it weighted her down with cold dread.

Raoul's face softened. "Yes. Yes, I should like that. I will come and find you later, Christine." He offered her a curt nod before he bowed out of the room, tossing little more than a flippant glare in Erik's direction.

The two of them watched the party leave, listening for the fade of their voices as they made their way to the kitchen on the opposite side of the house. In her periphery, she could see how tightly Erik's fists were wound. Finally, he let out a strangled roar of frustration. "Insolent  _boy_!" he hissed, and he spun around to assault the piano keys with his rage.

She recognized the chords immediately, and they sucked all the air out of her lungs.

There was nothing else in her repertoire that could rival those notes in their dissonance and ominousness. Nothing else that could make her blood freeze and her hands quiver and her mouth run dry in the way that phrase did.

_Serve the meal and serve the maid!_

And indeed, she had been served to this disfigured Don Juan on a silver platter. Her stomach churned now just as it had then.

In a wide-eyed panic, she ripped Erik away from the instrument. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She hoped that none of the others had heard or recognized the music, but more than anything, she was stunned that he would play  _that_ , of all things, in front of her.

It was as though she had pulled him from a violent trance. At the touch of her hands, he spun and gripped her arms with a terrifying fierceness, pushing her up against the wall. His eyes, cold and hard, looked at her but did not  _see_  her, and for a moment she actually feared him again.

Then, just as quickly as he had raged, his gaze softened and he went slack-jawed. He released her abruptly, his long legs backpedaling a safe distance away.

"Forgive me," came his horrorstruck whisper. "I have not dared to play—that is, this was the first time since…" He trailed off and sank into a chair, staring at his splayed and shaking fingers. "Oh, Christine...I fear that darkness will forever ply these wretched hands." He shook his head. "It is beyond my comprehension how this flesh can remain so deathly cold when the blood beneath it boils to the point of combustion. It tears through my veins like hellfire!" He looked up at her now. "But better to combust outward than inward, my dear, is what I have learned. Survival, you see."

She breathed deeply, and then she walked over and wrapped her small, warm hands around his expansive ones as best as she could. He hung his head in response, her name a thin whisper on his lips.

She let her touch diffuse his emotion, and then she tugged at his arms until he stood. She kept one hand entwined with his as she led him up the stairs, away from all distraction. She hoped that none of the servants noticed, but she was starting to find it difficult to care.

Safe within the sanctuary of her room, they sat on the edge of her bed, and she wrote to him.

_Why do you let him get under your skin?_

A haughty puff of air escaped his nostrils. "Every time I think I have you, he is  _there_!" His jaw tightened beneath the large bruise already forming there, and he avoided her gaze. "In my mind's eye, he is the face of a lifetime of unattainable happiness."

She considered this, and for a brief second she was able to see Raoul as Erik might. It made it even harder to write her next sentence.

_He did not do anything that you would not have done under the same circumstances._

She knew from the way Erik's face hardened that she had struck a morsel of truth. "Hardly," he bit out. "To start, I would not have been such a bumbling idiot about practically everything." He stood and crossed to the window, staring out at some unknown point with his back to her as he spoke. "I suspect that you wish me to make amends, but I refuse to grovel before that mustachioed fop. Allowing him to hit me is already more concession than I have granted any man."

When he turned to face her again, his expression was stoic, but his eyes grieved. "None of these people shall ever forgive me, Christine. Apology is a wasted effort."

She frowned, and he approached to see what she was scrawling furiously across the page.  _You apologize to give them what they are owed, not to solicit forgiveness._

His lips pursed grimly. "And I suppose that you would have me apologize to the mafia, hmm? Stroll right into their den of violence and confess to murder?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed. Of course she would not expect him to do that—but then, what was the alternative? A life spent on the run, always looking over one shoulder? Perhaps he could manage that, but she did not think that she could.

His eyes searched her face with disquieting solemnity, and she realized that he must have already mapped out in his head every possible path forward and its resulting outcome. She wondered whether she even fit into any of those scenarios.

"Perhaps I ought to turn myself in," he surmised quietly. "My transgressions have begun to claw at my insides, and I suspect that I will never be able to achieve any sort of redemption."

Her heart shattered at his confession. She still had not forgiven him, she realized. She had not forgiven him in her mind, let alone in her words, and he knew it.

How hard would it be to write those three words?  _I forgive you._ Three words and she could absolve him of his agony. But when she thought back to the Opera Populaire, she still felt the fresh sting of betrayal, and it arrested her.

She stood and embraced him instead, burying her face in the crook of his neck so that he could not see her guilt. His arms curled around her, and he sighed. "I feel as though I am growing ever closer to my own destruction," he said, "but one touch from you and I can carry on in blissful ignorance."

She did not know how to reassure him.

* * *

Nightfall found Christine staring blankly out her window, which overlooked a spacious courtyard behind the house. Thick walls of shady trees formed its perimeter. She could see Raoul and Alessandro lounging in chairs near the garden, each holding a glass of liquor, and with the window cracked open she could hear the murmur of their conversation.

Her exchange with Raoul had been brief, given that she could not speak. He had led her to Alessandro's study, with its sleek walnut furnishings and faint odor of cigars, and he had closed the door against prying eyes. Christine knew better than to assume that Erik could not eavesdrop, but the conversation was blessedly perfunctory.

"Return to Paris with me," the vicomte had said, his grey irises soft and pleading. "I will keep you safe. You do not have to stay with me, or commit to anything—but heaven help me, I cannot bear to see you in his clutches again." He had reached out to take her hand; his grip was warm and firm. "He is a wanted man, Christine. There is no good that can come of this."

She had conceded his point. The thought of returning to Paris, however, held little appeal. As though sensing this, he had added, "And perhaps we might...reconnect. I"—here he had swallowed—"I have missed you. I cannot help but wonder whether I should have…" He shook his head. "I hardly even know. This past year has been entirely surreal, and I have faltered many times along the way. I hope that you can forgive me."

And she had. It had been easy to do, in the face of such earnestness. After all, she had stumbled so many times herself in the wake of  _Don Juan Triumphant_. She had assured him that she would consider his proposition alongside Meg's, praying fervently that Erik had heard none of this.

She watched now as Alessandro gesticulated wildly with his free hand, and Raoul erupted into his trademark laughter, an easy, golden rumble that never failed to warm her to her toes.

It was not something that she had taken for granted, being with a man who thrived in social situations. She had found the dinner parties and dances and charity events to be daunting. Conversation did not come easily to her where strangers were concerned; small talk was tedious and awkward. Raoul had been patient with her in the beginning, however—no doubt charmed by her singing voice and her pretty face.

But she recalled his conviction when he assured her that there  _was_  no phantom of the opera, even as she insisted on the contrary. She remembered how unsettled he became when she went permanently mute and became even more withdrawn.

He had, perhaps unknowingly, always treated her as a charity case, she realized: a wounded stray to be taken in and groomed and mended, and then set on display. He needed a partner who could fit in easily among society, whom he could wear on his arm with unwavering pride. She was not that woman.

She was an other. She had  _always_  been an other, the timid girl with the strange upbringing and the golden voice, who related more to folklore and music than she did other people.

Was it any wonder that she was drawn to Erik now? No one understood otherness better than he did. He saw her for exactly what she was, and he loved her in spite of it—perhaps even  _for_  it. And he did not expect her to change.

How heavy a burden that seemed now, that expectation to change one's nature. Was she expecting too much of Erik, too soon?

There was a soft knock at her door. She could not call out, though she was not sure that she would have anyway. It opened a few seconds later, and she knew it was Erik from his silence.

At length, she heard him close the door; then he was at her side, hands clasped behind his back, following her gaze down into the courtyard. "Ah," he remarked. "Of course." He chuckled without mirth. "Ah, but you never did specify which of you ended the betrothal."

In the corner of her eye, she saw him cock his head expectantly. She knew that no good could come from telling him, regardless of her response. Still, she signed  _he did_ , not even daring to look at him.

He edged in closer, his front pressing into her side. "And still you pine for him." His voice was low and gravelly. "What an enlightening discussion the two of you must have had this evening." She did not react, not even when he moved behind her and pressed a broad hand to her abdomen, pulling her flush against him. She could feel his breath on the side of her neck. "Tell me," he said, his lips just grazing her throat, "do you yearn for him to touch you like this?"

She closed her eyes, her breath hitching as his hand skated upward to cup her breast through her clothing. Meanwhile, his other hand unfastened her skirt and petticoat, loosening the garments just enough for him to slip his hand under her waistband in front. Her knees shook as his long fingers found the warm folds tucked between her legs.

He continued to murmur into her ear as he stroked her. "Can the vicomte make you  _burn_  like this, Christine? Can he unfurl music from your soul like silken thread, until you are sent spiraling into ecstasy?" His fingertips pressed harder now, making her mouth fall open as she writhed under his hand. "Can he give you that release?"

She was not sure what possessed her to do it, knowing that it would only feed his ego, but she shook her head vehemently in response. There was a rumble low in his throat, and he withdrew his hands in order to yank her skirts and drawers down to her ankles, leaving her in only bodice, chemise, and stockings. He bunched up the hem of the chemise to lay bare that most intimate part of her person.

Stunned, she opened her eyes again. Raoul was now sitting alone in the courtyard. He absently ran a finger around the rim of his glass, while Erik ran his fingers over the newly exposed skin of her hips and thighs and lower abdomen. She felt helpless against his touch; her body ached for it, even as something in the back of her mind ached for her former fiancé. She had missed Raoul's sweetness and his warm smile, his eagerness to bring her cheer.

Broad hands mapped the curves of her backside before pulling her against the apex of Erik's thighs, where she could feel a burgeoning hardness that both thrilled and terrified her. He groaned at the friction, and then she heard the telltale sounds of belt and trousers being unfastened. A splayed hand at her back pressed her torso down until she was angled forward, her hands falling to the windowsill for support, and then he slid into her from behind. His hands found purchase on her hips.

They both gasped. For her, it was an entirely different sensation from the night before: fuller, deeper, bordering on uncomfortable. Each slow, deliberate thrust reverberated within her body. She felt some disdain for the animalistic nature of their coupling, yet it was decidedly easier to not look him in the eye. She suspected that the same was true for him. They would use each other, then, pawing desperately at any scrap of pleasure in order to drown out his envy and self-loathing, her heartache and uncertainty. Such was the nature of their relationship progression, it seemed: two steps forward, one step back.

As she grew accustomed to the intensity of this new angle, she found that she did not want it to stop. It was exactly what she needed, this perfect suspension of pleasure over an undercurrent of turmoil that she would rather ignore. She shuddered to realize that Raoul's proximity to the open window only heightened the thrill that she felt.

She began to push back against Erik, willing him to go faster. He inhaled sharply, his grip on her tightening, and then he increased his pace. His hips snapped against her skin in a steady rhythm, and she could not help but let her mouth fall open as she rocked in time with his movements. When his long fingers skimmed across her thigh to tease the bundle of nerves between her legs, she began to emit soundless whimpers. She could scarcely remember where she was.

No, Raoul would never have made her burn like this. Perhaps that was why she had fled to him in the first place.

Erik's hips and fingers began to move even more fervently, so relentless that she could hardly breathe. Her rapture, when it came, was incapacitating.

Her knees buckled. He caught her around the waist on her way down, and then she was in his arms, carried over to the bed as he pressed his lips to her brow, her cheek, her throat. He lay her on the edge of the mattress, and then he was inside of her again, his face and neck glistening with perspiration as he leaned forward and buried himself to the hilt. She was still trembling with the aftershocks of her euphoria, and she gasped at this new pressure, at his unbridled passion—and in the throes of her heightened awareness, she suddenly knew that she loved him.

She still resented what he had done, she was terrified for the future of their relationship, and she missed Raoul, but she could still love Erik and have all of these things be true. She loved him for what he was and for what she knew he could be, for his mind and his depth of feeling, for his utter devotion to her, for the music that flowed through his veins and made his heart beat in time.

Tears stung her eyes as she reached for his face and slid off the mask. Even as he drove into her, she was careful to set it on the mattress nearby. She palmed his face, and then she pulled his head down and kissed him fiercely, her fingers raking over uneven flesh. He moaned even as he kissed back, deep and desperate and full. The bed shook from his efforts. Everything around her was building in a heady crescendo, and oh, how badly she wanted him to find relief. It felt only natural that she should wrap her legs around him then.

He emitted a quiet, strangled cry, and he stiffened against her with tremendous force. She could feel his release everywhere that his body was pressed to hers. Its intensity was breathtaking, renewing the flow of tears from her eyes.

He collapsed next to her, dragging the two of them farther up the mattress to accommodate his length of leg. His chest shook as he kissed her mouth, her jaw, her eyelids. Finally, his hands and lips rooted themselves in her hair, and he wept into those short brown curls.

"Oh,  _Christine_." His voice was a choked whisper. "I do not deserve you. Please forgive me."

She was not even sure which of his transgressions he was apologizing for, but she cried with him, smoothing her hands over his still-clothed back and shoulders as he clung to her.

He fell asleep in her arms. She listened to his even breathing, sitting with the newfound knowledge that she loved him, and she knew that she could never rest easily as long as he was wanted by the mafia.

An idea began to coalesce in her mind. It would take careful planning and perhaps reckless bravado on her part, with absolutely no certainty of success. One thing, however, she was certain of: he would never agree to it.

And so she would not tell him.


	17. Men of Honor

While Erik slept, Christine rose to wash up and put on her nightclothes. When she peered outside afterward, she could see Raoul stalking the length of the courtyard, alone, drink still in hand.

Erik remained uncovered, the distorted half of his face once more pressed to the pillow. His lips were again parted enough to allow the gentle flow of air in and out, and it occurred to her for only the first time that perhaps the asymmetry of his nose made it difficult for him to breathe through nasal passages alone.

He was still in full dress, even his impeccably polished shoes. Only his mask and wig had come off. His trousers, unfastened at the waist, were the only other evidence that anything out of the ordinary had just occurred. At last, she thought with amusement, she had hit upon the one activity guaranteed to lull him to sleep.

She longed to divest him of his cravat and tailcoat, to strip him down to his shirtsleeves and press herself into the dips and hollows of his body and breathe in the scent of his skin. Another part of her wanted to rouse him and send him to his own room, knowing that Raoul would likely be staying in the same wing of the house.

Ultimately, she did neither. The moments that she had without Erik's keen eye on her were few, and she had to take advantage. She tied her dressing-gown snugly around her waist, grabbed paper and pen, and slipped out of the room.

She knew that Meg retired to bed early these days, but she hoped that Alessandro would still be up. Blessedly, she found the man alone in his study. He was bent over the ornate wooden desk, frowning at a sheaf of paper. She rapped gently on the door frame.

"Miss Daaé," he said, eyebrows vaulting at her presence. He gestured to a nearby armchair. "Please. Come in."

She sat opposite him with a timid and grateful smile, and she scrawled out a note to hand to him.  _I had hoped that you could tell me about the mafia_.

"Ah. Yes. My wife did mention your companion's suspicions." He leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers and cocking his head to regard her with eyes the color of charred wood. The way they were set against his tan skin and sharply defined jaw and cheekbones made him almost frustratingly handsome. "I do find it curious that you would seek such information absent his presence."

Christine tried to keep her face impassive, but she could feel her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster. To her relief, however, he smiled. "Ah, but it is not my place to cast judgment. No doubt your relationship with him is...complex." An understatement, if she had ever heard one. She nodded.

Alessandro sat forward once more to rest his elbows on the desk. "Are you very familiar with the history of this country, signorina?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Well, I will not bore you with the details, but only say that it is very turbulent. Sicily, in particular, has seen itself conquered over and over again, most recently by the Bourbons, who were driven out of the island only two decades ago. That was when the southern half of our present country united with the northern half to form the Kingdom of Italy."

He stood and crossed to a liquor tray off to the side of the room, where he filled two small glasses with a caramel-colored liqueur as he spoke. "Sicily's volatile past has resulted in rampant organized crime and political corruption, and the government was not prepared for this at the time of the unification. Instead of giving the Sicilians the power and means to address those structural problems, they essentially panicked and declared martial law." He smirked as he returned with the drinks. "It did not go well, of course. There were revolts."

He handed her a glass and sat back down. She watched him take a swig, and then she brought the drink to her lips for a cautious sip. Its bitterness caught her off guard; she barely managed to avoid sputtering. On her second sip, however, she intercepted some of the flavors that chased the satisfying burn of the alcohol as it coursed down her esophagus: honey, orange, anise.

Alessandro watched her curiously. When she flashed him a small smile to indicate that she liked the drink, he nodded approvingly. "Where was I? Ah, martial law! The peculiar thing, signorina, is that even among all of this turmoil, Sicilian landowners managed to grow quite wealthy."

Sicily, he explained, was a leading exporter of citrus fruit. Landowners had to protect their crops from theft and vandalism, but with local law enforcement scarce and unreliable, they began to contract the protection of their estates to companies of bandits and criminals who specialized in violence.

"Those companies colluded with one another and intimidated others in order to become a sect so broad, so threatening, that its members have influenced and infiltrated local government and law enforcement. And the more the Italian government tries to quash their influence, the more they alienate the people of Sicily."

He downed the last of his liquor. Christine had consumed only half of hers, but already she felt pleasantly light and relaxed.

"One might consider them a shadow government," he went on. "They do wield much power, but they are ultimately a business, focused on profit. They manipulate the state in order to sidestep legal barriers and maximize that profit."

She set her glass down to write.  _Erik said they use that influence to downplay their own existence._

Alessandro nodded. "Yes, many still doubt the mafia's presence. The Sicilians often claim that the label is an invention of the government, used as a pretext for oppression." He raised a dark eyebrow. "It surprises me that Signor Erik should know so much."

_He is a man of exceptional knowledge. How do_ you  _know so much, signor?_

He chuckled. "You sound suspicious, Miss Daaé! Have no fear; were I actually connected to the mafia, I would not be telling you any of this. They consider themselves 'men of honor,' and to speak of their involvement in  _Cosa Nostra_  would likely invoke their swift execution."

He rose to pour himself a second glass. "No, signorina, I am nothing if not a businessman. And lemons are surprisingly lucrative." Her face must have registered surprise, because he laughed again. "Perhaps it would help you to understand the scale of the industry if I told you that, currently, two and a half million cases of Italian citrus fruit are shipped annually to New York alone? Most of them are from Palermo. It seems a solid investment, no?" She nodded uncertainly.

When he sat across from her again, his jaw was tense with irritation even as he smiled. "Ah, but do you know how long it takes a newly planted lemon tree to start yielding fruit? Eight years! And then at least a few more before one can begin to conceive of making a profit." He chuckled without mirth, shook his head, and took a sip. Christine copied him, unsure of how to react.

"I was young and foolish and optimistic when I bought and cleared land outside of Palermo for a lemon grove. That was six years ago. I hired a warden to take care of it for me, and I assumed that was that.

"As the grove began to grow over the years, however, unsettling things started to happen. Vandalism. Written threats pressuring the warden to leave my employ. I personally presented evidence to a local police inspector, numerous times, and he failed to make any headway. It was only later, in the course of discussion with my contacts in government, that I learned of the mafia's pervasive influence in the Palermo citrus industry. They have a hand in nearly every aspect of production: harvest, packing, wholesaling, transportation.

"The harassment worsened until the warden notified me of his resignation just six months ago. At that point, I received in the post an unsigned letter suggesting the names of men whom I ought to 'strongly consider' hiring in his stead. But I will not be bullied, signorina, and I did not comply. I hired someone else. I then received an offer of purchase, at only  _half_  the value of the property, and I declined that, too."

Christine watched in amazement as Alessandro downed the remainder of his second glass as well. She sensed that he was building to something that he did not wish to acknowledge.

"I returned from my hunting trip early," he continued, "because I received an urgent message from an informant that there were three suspected  _mafiosi_  staying in one of my hotels." He frowned at the memory. "The coincidence seemed too great, and I will be honest with you: I feared for the safety of my wife and unborn child. Imagine my surprise when I found you and the notorious phantom of the opera instead!"

She forced a small smile, and then she picked up her pen again.  _What will you do now?_ she asked.

He shook his head. "I had intended to wait it out, assuming that they would not go so far as to travel all the way to Rome to intimidate me. But in those hours in which I feared the worst, I was truly shaken. I will be turning to my friends for counsel, and I ask that you not mention this to my wife, given her delicate condition."

Christine looked quickly down at her glass as her face fell. She felt sick to her stomach. If the mafia could cut down a shrewd and seemingly impervious businessman like Alessandro, then what chance did she have?

When she glanced up at him again, he was studying her carefully. "What I would have you know about the mafia, Miss Daaé," he said, "is that they are fiercely loyal to their own. It seems an almost inherently Sicilian quality, as they have long learned not to trust outsiders. They fulfill their responsibilities with great pride and honor."

They were startled into silence by the loud slam of a door elsewhere in the house. Heavy footsteps followed, and then Raoul's bellowing voice echoed throughout the hall: "Monsieur ghost! Show yourself!"

Alessandro sighed, his eyes closing briefly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Heaven help us," he said, rising from his chair. "He is drunk."

She followed him down the hall and into the foyer, where Raoul leaned unsteadily against one wall, glowering up at the staircase. He was absent his tailcoat, and his shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows. "Come, come, monsieur phantom!" he yelled. "Let us see how well you fare outside your den of traps and trickery! Or must I come find you myself?"

Christine felt a stab of panic in her chest as she remembered that Erik was still in her bed. Even if Raoul did not presently know where she was staying, he would figure it out eventually. When he moved to ascend the staircase, she lunged for him, only to have Alessandro reach him first. "De Chagny!" he hissed, grabbing the vicomte by the shirt collar. "Shut your mouth before you wake the entire household."

But it was too late. First Meg appeared, bleary-eyed with her golden hair tied in rags, followed by Madame Giry, who was almost unrecognizable with her dark, unpinned hair cascading down the back of her dressing-gown. "What is the meaning of this, monsieur le vicomte?" she asked crossly. "I can think of nothing to warrant such appalling conduct."

"Is that so?" Raoul's head lolled in her direction. "Not even retribution for when a madman abducted my fianceé and forced her into a wedding dress, while I was made to watch with a noose around my neck?"

They were spared the effort of finding a suitable reply by Erik's appearance at the top of the staircase. He was as sharply dressed and unruffled as ever, his mask back in place, the dark hair of his wig slicked back and gleaming. "Monsieur le vicomte," he said, by way of a greeting, as he began his smooth descent down the steps. "I have already allowed your one strike; have you forgotten? I do not wish to come to blows again."

Raoul pushed off of the wall, cracking his knuckles as he spoke. "If you think that a single blow would appease me, monsieur, then you are sorely mistaken. I am ready for you now."

Erik cocked his head as he stepped onto the landing. "Are you indeed?"

"Quite. I demand that you face me without your lasso, without ridiculous charades and bursts of flame! And if you choose not to fight back, well, all the better for me."

Erik sighed and edged closer to Christine, peering into her face as he did so. "You wished to know how to defend yourself," he said. "Here is your first lesson, I suppose."

This served only to enrage Raoul more, and he lunged for the man in the mask. "Standard front choke," Erik announced even as Raoul's arms left his sides. Sure enough, his hands wrapped around Erik's throat.

"Your natural reflex will be to bring your hands up," Erik instructed, his voice constricted but not cut off, which spoke to Raoul's state of inebriation. He brought his fists up to face level. "Pivot, swing, and elbow."

In a blur of motion, he twisted his torso to knock Raoul's arms away with an upright forearm, which he then whipped back to elbow the vicomte in the face. Raoul stumbled backward, palm to his cheek as he collided with a small table bearing a vase of flowers. Both items wobbled precariously before Madame Giry rushed to their rescue.

Erik turned to Christine. "In your case, I would add a simultaneous knee to the groin. I think we can agree, however, that it is unnecessary here."

Raoul seemed to be rallying. Erik braced himself for another attack, but Christine was quick to grab his arm and pull him away, shaking her head to indicate that she wanted no more of this. His eyes read hers and softened. "As you wish," he said quietly. When Raoul ran at him again, he sidestepped the man entirely, sending him slamming into the wall nearby.

"That is  _quite_ enough from both of you!" chided Madame Giry, and she looked expectantly to Alessandro. "Signor,  _please._ "

He nodded and moved in to pull Raoul aside. "All right, old friend, let us get you some coffee."

But Raoul shoved his arm away; he was wild-eyed, a man on a mission. "It's obvious what you are doing here," he spat at Erik. "You think that you have a second chance with her! As though she would ever forget what you have done!"

Erik's irises flashed in warning, but he did not respond, perhaps only out of courtesy to Christine.

"Did you know that she had nightmares about you?" Raoul went on. It was only a flicker of surprise that crossed Erik's face, but it was enough to twist the vicomte's mouth into a malicious grin. "Oh, yes. In the weeks before she lost her voice, I lost count of the number of times that she woke up screaming and sobbing in the night."

Erik's fists tightened at his sides, and it seemed as though every tendon in his neck had snapped taut. He looked so deathly pale next to Raoul's now-tanned skin and sunkissed hair.

Christine had had enough. She stepped in front of her former fiancé and planted a palm firmly against his chest. He hesitated; his stormy grey eyes passed over her face but did not really  _see_  her. Then he blanketed her hand with his own, warm and soft, and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze as he pulled them away from his waistcoat. "Stand aside, Christine," he told her solemnly, and he returned her arm to her side. "This does not concern you."

Her jaw dropped. Absent the ability to raise her voice, she did the only thing that made sense in the moment: she slapped him.

Distantly, she heard Meg gasp, but she was focused on Raoul's face. It was as though she had stunned him into sobriety. He regarded her now with an expression so wounded that it knotted her insides. "Why, Christine?" he whispered.

Her lips quivered, and her vision blurred with the makings of frustrated tears. She looked to Erik. He was studying her face with quiet intention, all traces of his bravado having evaporated. "Oh, my dear," he said softly. "How tiresome this must be."

There was a flutter of hope in her breast; did he finally understand? An errant teardrop slid down her cheek. He reached out to brush it away with the pad of his thumb, oblivious to the awed stares of the others. She very nearly leaned into his palm but caught herself.

"Angel," he addressed her. "I fear that your voice—so to speak—has rarely been given the weight it deserves." He retracted his hand and turned back to her former fiancé. "You are incorrect, monsieur le vicomte. This matter absolutely concerns her, for you and I have used her for our own purposes at every juncture of this ongoing rivalry."

Christine felt an immense weight lift from her chest. Breathing was easier now. She could not speak, but she felt  _heard_.

"Whatever I have done," said Raoul through gritted teeth, "it has only been with her best interests at heart."

The masked man laughed. "Is that so? Do tell, do tell, monsieur! Why, it must have been another vicomte who drowned out her every word with his own self-assuredness!" Christine flushed to have their relationship discussed so openly, but she could not deny the truth of Erik's words. "Or perhaps you had an epiphany after your own selfish thirst for revenge resulted in her abduction? For I do recall her protesting against that final performance, monsieur, and most vehemently."

There was a glimmer of guilt in Raoul's eyes, even as he objected. "Do not  _dare_  equate my actions with yours!"

"No." Erik's tone went somber. "No, I dare not do that. For I am the monster in this scenario, am I not? And you remain the gallant knight who rode into the monster's den to rescue the fair maiden." His lips pulled taut. "Ah, but you  _did_  shatter the fairytale, monsieur le vicomte, in the end."

Raoul scowled and batted his hand as if to wave the man away. "Enough of this," he said. "I owe you nothing, and you have no right to meddle in affairs that are not of your concern. You should not even  _be_  here, for God's sake! She is only with you because you ruined her life  _again_!"

The ensuing silence was thick with tension. No one attempted to intervene any longer; it was as though each onlooker had independently decided to let this inevitable altercation run its course.

Christine watched Erik's face darken with contempt, dreading what he might do or say next. His voice, when he spoke, was so icily subdued that it unnerved her more than his shouting ever had. "Tell me, vicomte, when did you first realize that you would not find in our dear Christine the docile wife whom you had hoped for?"

Oh, yes: there was anger in the set of Raoul's jaw. That reaction was unsurprising. What caught Christine off guard, however, was how he could no longer seem to meet the gaze of the man addressing him. She found herself holding her breath.

She could tell by the sudden gleam in Erik's eyes that he had noticed, too. He forged ahead with his verbal assault. "No doubt it was a lovely pretense at first—courting one's childhood sweetheart, the songbird of the Paris Opera!—but you had not anticipated that she would not fit into the mold you created for her."

It was overwhelming sometimes, how well he knew her. But his earlier statement had rung true: this tug-of-war was tiresome, and he had apparently already forgotten in his returning selfishness. She moved to stand between the two men, fixing Erik with a weighty glare.  _Enough._

His bicolored eyes burned into hers even as he snuck in the last word. "Christine is  _far_  too extraordinary to be a vicomtesse."

She grabbed his elbow, her stomach fluttering all the while, and she swiftly pulled him over to the staircase. "No worries, monsieur le vicomte!" he called over his shoulder. "No doubt I am to be thoroughly chastised for my behavior. By an angel without a voice, no less! Good evening to you all."

She yanked at his arm even harder; he accompanied her without protest as she stalked up the stairs and into her room. When she shut the door and rounded on him, he raised his palms in deference. "I know. I know! I underscored how often you are caught in the middle, and then I threw you right back in. I am a bitter, vile human being, Christine. You ought to know that by now."

In the absence of words, she emitted an exasperated sigh. He nodded. "I would not blame you if you wanted to strike me. Though if you ask me, there is far too much slapping going on here."

She could not keep the corner of her mouth from curling back into a half-smile, and his eyes brightened at that. He reached out to cup the back of her head and draw her in. "I  _am_  sorry," he murmured. He leaned in, pressing his half-bloated lips to her own with movements soft and reverent; her body thrummed.

When he eventually pulled back, however, she fixed him with another glower. He sighed. "Yes, I allowed him to weasel under my skin once more. But, Christine, it  _infuriates_ me to know that he abandoned you after all that occurred, after you were prepared to sacrifice your life for his! You chose  _him_ , for God's sake!"

She shook her head and signed a reply:  _You chose for me._

It still stung. He had not even addressed her in those moments after she had kissed him in his lair, when she had stood with shaking fingertips hovering at her lips, reeling from a surge of emotion that she did not understand. He had appealed to Raoul instead.  _Take her._

Erik now stared at her, stunned, for several seconds. "So I did," he murmured. "So I did."

He took her hand and led her to the bed, where they both sat on the edge of the mattress as he trailed a callused thumb over her dry fingers and knuckles. "I have no right to ask why you were downstairs," he said, "but I will admit that your disappearance fueled my unrest. That, and what I did earlier, at the window..." He hesitated. "It was brutish."

It  _had_  been, given his initial intention; he had sought to mark her as his own. She nodded her agreement.

He grimaced. For a moment it seemed that he would weep again, but he composed himself. "I am trying," he whispered. "Oh, Christine, I am trying to be better for you."

But he had not needed to say so; she knew. It was obvious to her, and it had likely been obvious to everyone watching the awkward display of machismo in the foyer. Her anger began to ebb, supplanted by the inordinate pride she felt for his increased self-awareness. She squeezed his hand, and then she signed,  _Bed._

"Of course." Resigned and suddenly weary, he rose to his feet. She marvelled at how his legs seemed to protract as they straightened, elevating him like slender pillars so that he towered over her as she sat. "We have much to consider regarding our path forward, but it can wait until tomorrow. I bid you goodnight, then."

Ah, but that was not what she had meant. When he made for the door, Christine stood and gave a gentle squeeze of his elbow to stop him. She pivoted him to face her again, and then he watched, wide-eyed, as she slowly untied the cravat at his throat. It made her ache to know that he was still surprised by her touch.

He scarcely blinked as she unbuttoned his black waistcoat and peeled it back over his shoulders with the tailcoat. She felt his abdomen constrict when her fingers moved to his belt buckle; he may have stopped breathing entirely. When she slid the wool trousers over his hips so that they pooled around his ankles, he rallied enough to step out of them.

She draped all of these garments over the stiff-backed desk chair, and then she removed her dressing-gown and lay it atop his clothes. When she turned back to him, sliding off her slippers to stand barefoot in a pale-pink nightdress, he had already removed the mask and wig and was clutching them with faintly trembling fingers. The tentative hope in his eyes offset that raw and gnarled flesh; she found herself smiling in reassurance as she took the items from his hands to place them on the desk.

Finally, she extended a hand and he took it, watching her with focused reverence as she pulled him back to the bed.

Christine wormed under the covers, and Erik followed suit. They lay on their sides to regard each other in the dim light of the gaslamp. How glad she was for his presence; she did not want to sleep alone any longer, consequences be damned.

"So often I have studied your face," he murmured, "and memorized every blush, every frown, every bite of lip. But this..." He reached up to stroke her cheek. "I do not understand what I see there now."

Her heartbeat faltered. She should tell him; he deserved to know. But would it only serve to make things worse, knowing what she planned to do in the coming days?

Instead she kissed him, and her feelings emerged as weighted breaths and urgent slides of lip, as fingers curled tightly in those wisps of sparse and ashen hair. She knew that he would forever doubt her affection as long as she did not say the words, but she  _could_  not say the words, for so many reasons, and so she only kissed him harder, her fists balled at his shirt collar.

There was a rumble of male voices out in the hall, and the two of them froze. As the sounds drew nearer to her door, she could make out Alessandro's placating tone. "She is likely sleeping," he said. "Come, friend; you can talk to her in the morning."

Erik had stopped kissing her at the sound of the men approaching, and now their mouths hovered a hair's width apart. His breath fanned her face with the sultry heaviness of a summer night, making her toes curl in anticipation even as she prayed that Raoul would not knock on her door.

The vicomte mumbled something in response to Alessandro, and their footsteps receded. Erik wasted no time. He reached back with an outstretched arm to dim the gaslamp by the headboard, and then the same arm swept forward to pull her flush against him. She could feel the evidence of his desire as lips and tongue found the sensitive dip of her neck.

She was far too sore to conceive of  _that_  again so soon, but neither did she want to spurn him. After some deliberation, it occurred to her that if he had brought her pleasure with his hand, then perhaps she could do the same for him.

She reached down and palmed that solid heat through the thin fabric of his drawers. "Christine," he gasped against her skin, and she smiled with the knowledge that he was again at her mercy.


	18. Goddess Rising

Erik roused her just before dawn. "It is early," he said, "but I ought to return to my room. I shall see you at breakfast."

Reluctantly, Christine let him go. She did not sleep well after his departure.

When she went downstairs with her satchel for breakfast, he was already at the table, perusing an Italian newspaper. Meg and Alessandro sipped coffee and nibbled at pastries from a tray on the sideboard; Madame Giry stirred cream into a cup of tea. Raoul was blessedly not present. Christine helped herself to coffee and pastry, settling in next to Madame Giry so as not to draw even more attention to the masked man in the room.

More than once she caught an exchange of meaningful glances between husband and wife, often followed by a quick look in her direction. Her stomach fluttered; did Meg know about the mafia discussion? If anyone besides Erik could catch onto her plans, it would likely be her closest friend.

Erik began to fold his paper, and Alessandro jumped on the opportunity. "May I ask where you intend to go from here, signor?"

"I expect that is to be a matter of discussion today," came Erik's reply, and he glanced over at Christine. "Rest assured, however, that I do not intend to impose on you much longer."

While Alessandro headed off any concerns about imposition, Meg's gaze again flitted toward her. Finally, when Christine had drained the last of her coffee, her friend pushed back her chair and got to her feet. "Christine, I wonder if you might have some time to chat? We still have much to catch up on."

Warily, Christine nodded and followed the other woman to the doorway. Erik watched them leave, but if their intended seclusion concerned him, he did not indicate as much.

Meg led Christine to the delicate salon adjoining her bedroom, closing the door behind them as Christine perched on a settee in wait. She smiled at the slight waddle in her friend's step as she crossed to a chair of upholstered velvet.

Meg sat and looked up pointedly. "You are sleeping with him."

It was not even a question. Christine was stunned by her frankness almost as much as she was the remark. She knew that she ought to deny it, but she could only stare at her friend with mortified shock and wonder how she had found out.

"Alessandro reported that yours was the only occupied room when he took Raoul to the guest wing late last night." Meg sighed. "It seems obvious now, in hindsight." Her eyes glimmered mischievously, and she added, "You are both far too relaxed given the circumstances."

Christine replied with a scandalized jaw drop and a playful slap to Meg's knee. Her friend smiled in response, but her face was quick to lapse back into seriousness. "What he said about you and Raoul last night...do you think it is true? That you would have been unhappy as a vicomtesse?"

With some reluctance, Christine nodded.

"I suspect that Raoul will leave today," Meg said. "He has always had that strange combination of good sense and pride, has he not? At least, when he is not drinking."

Christine was relieved, and not just because it would ease the tension in the household. His departure would mean one fewer person whose reaction she would need to consider in moving forward with her plans.

Meg was watching her expression carefully. "Last night, when you struck Raoul and then looked over to the pha—" She caught herself. "—to Erik...there was something that passed between you two." Her face softened. "It felt...meaningful. As though the gravity of the room had changed. Oh, goodness, Christine, are you in  _love_  with him?"

She could not bring herself to agree, but her hesitation betrayed her anyway. She could feel her friend's eyes honing in on her every move, every breath. "But it would hardly be anything new, would it?" she finally asked. "There has always been some part of you that has been drawn to him. I remember how entranced you were by your angel of music! Perhaps if he had come to you differently..." Meg shook her head. "I would say he was impassioned, but truly, he was cruel and thickheaded. Perhaps through little fault of his own, given what you have said of his past, but thickheaded nonetheless."

Christine could not help but react with silent laughter. Meg smiled along with her, but then her expression sobered. "You are going to go with him, aren't you?"

Oh, what could she say? To say yes would be a lie; to say no would invite further questions, or perhaps an assumption that she planned to stay in Rome. Finally, she retrieved her writing implements from her satchel and wrote,  _I do not know._

As she showed her response to Meg, another idea struck her. She retracted the paper to add,  _Regardless, I would like to do something for Signor Piangi's family. A gesture of goodwill. Will you help me?_

Meg raised an eyebrow. "What did you have in mind?"

* * *

After her discussion with Meg, Christine sought out Erik and demanded that he teach her more self-defense maneuvers. She could not convey how urgently she needed the instruction, but to her relief, he still agreed. She watched him examine the back courtyard through the window to determine that it was sufficiently secluded, and then the pair of them went outside.

It was cooler that day, and overcast; Erik wore his cloak for the first time since they had left Paris on the train. He looked as dark and imposing as ever, but in a way that thrilled more than unsettled her.

He first lectured her on prevention, with a focus on awareness of surroundings. He went over the most vulnerable parts of the body—eyes, nose, neck, groin, knees—so that she could inflict the most damage using as little energy as necessary, thus enabling her to get away. He showed her how to strike those areas, leveraging her weight when possible, and he made her practice the maneuvers over and over again.

He demonstrated how to break out of chokeholds and wrist holds and nearly any scenario she could think of, and she practiced those maneuvers, too. He did not hurt her when he posed as an attacker, but his grip was firm, and he did not hesitate to press himself against her when necessary. Several times she found her skin turning to gooseflesh at his touch, even as focused as she was on learning from him.

When he stood behind her and curled his arms around her torso, there was such a sensuousness to his embrace that she momentarily forgot that she was supposed to break free of the bear hug. She focused instead on the hot breaths caressing her neck, until he murmured, "Careful, my dear. We have an audience."

She glanced up with a start. Raoul watched them from an upstairs window, his face impassive. She made herself focus harder on the lesson; Erik, by contrast, touched her with even greater frequency and zeal.

They worked together in the courtyard for well over an hour, until he deemed her abilities sufficient. She followed him back into the house, unsure of whether she wanted to pass out on her bed or drag him into his. Either way, a bed seemed to be her end goal.

"Christine." Raoul caught her attention on her way in, bringing both her and Erik to a halt. He ignored the masked man. "I am afraid that I must depart for Paris shortly. Might I have a word?"

Hesitantly, she nodded. She gave Erik a small smile—of what? Apology? Gratitude? She was not even sure—as she was led back out into the courtyard. She was grateful to have her satchel with her, so that she might communicate more effectively. Raoul could not read her as Erik could.

He led her to a garden bench of ornately carved white marble, nestled among a well-groomed shrubbery, where they sat angled toward each other.

"Little Lotte," he addressed her with a wan smile. There was an affectionate finality to his tone, and that was all it took, that term of endearment, for the weight of their shared history to come crashing down on her.

A sandy-haired boy who dove fully clothed into a churning sea to rescue a runaway scarf. Secrets and stories shared in a cozy attic, with her dear, late father's violin crooning in the background. A red rose in her dressing room that rekindled the feelings of home she had so desperately been missing.

A gentle, guiding hand into an adult world that she did not fully understand. That same hand slipping onto her finger, in secret, a golden promise of unwavering devotion and companionship. A prolonged and dangerous test of that unwavering devotion with a near-fatal end, and then that warm hand again, pulling her out of the darkness.

Her first real friend, after a childhood filled with little more than passing playmates.

Her first love.

She smiled back at Raoul even as the tears began to fall, and without question he folded her into his arms. Those arms had always been open, his embrace warm and reassuring, and that was no different now. Regardless of the truth in Erik's words the night before, the fact remained that Raoul de Chagny was, on the whole, a selfless man.

"He was right," he murmured into her hair. "He was right, and it makes me loathe him all the more." She looked up at him then, and he gave her a sad smile. "I suspect that I often treated you as one might a child, and for that I am sorry." He released her from his hold, but he kept one of her hands cupped in his. "The more I think about it, the more I realize that you are one of the most formidable people I know. And I mean that in a good way," he clarified, his eyes twinkling.

She beamed at him, and he squeezed her hand. "I need you to know," he continued, "that regardless of the outcome, there has never been a moment when I did not love you. And that as far as our relationship is concerned...I regret nothing."

With that, the tears started anew. It felt like the end of an era.

"My offer still stands. I suspect, though, that there is little I can offer you, and little in Paris to hold your interest at this point." With a wistful smile, she shook her head to confirm his suspicions.

But no, on second thought...perhaps he could help her in her gesture toward Piangi's family as well. She fished out her paper and pen, and she began to write.

* * *

Christine returned to her room after she bid Raoul farewell. She felt grimy from all of the time spent outdoors, and she was weary and emotionally spent.

She nearly jumped at the sight of Erik standing near her window. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he was staring down at the spot that she and Raoul had just occupied. She was unable to gauge his mood. After some hesitation, she crossed to his side and slid her arm through his. When she rested her cheek against his shoulder, she felt his muscles slacken ever so slightly.

His gaze remained fixed on the courtyard as he spoke. "Did he ask you to return to Paris with him?"

Hesitantly, she nodded.

Erik's face was stony. "And you are here to collect your things."

She was so stunned that she initially could not respond. This man! Would he forever assume the worst of himself?

She left his side to close the bedroom door, and when she returned to him, she lifted his hand so that she could sign words into his palm, as she had the night when she had come to his bed.

_I love you._

He went stock-still, her hand still nestled in his. The room was so quiet that she could hear every irregular breath that left his lungs with a quivering rasp.

Suddenly, he dropped her hand and fell to his knees. He seemed incapable of producing speech; instead, he gasped for air as his long fingers clutched at the hem of her skirt. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to her legs, his back and chest heaving with silent sobs.

All she could do was run her hands over and through his wig, unsure of whether he could even feel her touch through that thick copse of hair.

He clung to her skirts at length, and with great effort he finally pushed himself up to face her again. His eyes were wide and bright.

"Oh, my Christine," he said reverently. "How long I have yearned to hear you say those words—would have  _died_  to hear you utter those words—and yet now that you have, I can scarcely believe that they are meant for my ears." He emitted a strangled laugh. "Or my hands, as it were. Oh, to  _feel_  the words on my skin—that, my angel, is an altogether unparalleled sensation." He brought her knuckles to his lips for a tender kiss. "They will be forever burned into the memory of that blessed palm."

It made her lightheaded, the way he spun words like poetry in the course of conversation. It almost made sense that he should have the face that he did, and the sour disposition that accompanied it; otherwise, it would have been unfair for any one man to exude so much beauty. It flowed through his veins with his music, curled itself within his larynx, thrummed in his touch. It compelled the limber fingers that exacted both agony and ecstasy from the willing keys of an instrument.

Perhaps he saw that beauty as being tainted by darkness, but that only made it seem more extraordinary to her, that such beauty should prevail  _despite_  the darkness.

She put her hand to his palm and signed it again.  _I love you, and you are beautiful._

His fingers swathed hers so fiercely that it almost hurt. He pressed the unmasked side of his forehead to hers and allowed one desperate, choked sob to escaped his throat.

"Please say that you will come with me," he whispered. "I will go anywhere. Anywhere you want, so long as you let me stay at your side."

The thought of lying to him now was nearly unbearable, but she had to do it.  _Yes_ , she signed into his hand, and she nodded for emphasis.

He kissed her so fiercely that she thought her lips might bruise. "Oh, my angel, you will not regret it."

Her verbal commitment seemed to sober him and spur him into action, and he pulled away from her to plan. "We shall go north to start. Milan, perhaps. And once we are there, we can choose our next destination. We ought to leave tomorrow."

She shook her head.  _One more day_ , she signed. She needed him off his guard.

If her request struck him as odd, he did not show it. "Very well, then. Time for closure with your friends, I suppose."

He continued to scheme until she made him leave so that she could change. She found him later at the piano, with Meg embroidering nearby, and she sat next to her friend on the loveseat. "He is very good," Meg confessed quietly. "I should not be surprised, but I truly had no idea."

They listened to him for another few minutes as he coaxed a nocturne from the keys, and then Meg stood and excused herself. "It is time for my late-morning lie-down," she said with a sheepish smile. "I am afraid that I do not have the energy I used to."

Christine saw her off and then crossed to where Erik sat at the piano, running her hands over his back and shoulders. He seemed to melt under her touch, and even stopped his playing. "Would you care to join me?" he murmured.

She shook her head.  _I will read,_  she signed.

"Very well. I expect that I will be at least another half hour. Perhaps I shall see you at lunch?"

She nodded and slipped out of the room, ostensibly to fetch her book, but instead she hurried to Alessandro's study. She had to make the most of this window of time.

Outside his door, she withdrew from her satchel the carefully folded note that she had written earlier, intending to give it to him. She unfolded it to reread its contents.  _I need a pistol_ , it said,  _and I need you to teach me how to use it._

He would do it, she knew. He might protest or question, but ultimately, he would help her if it ensured her safety.

She stared at the written words for a long time, recalling Erik's earlier caution about the nature of firearms. Then she crumpled the page in her fist and threw it back into her bag. No, she would not have that guilt on her conscience again, come what may. It was not who she was. She quickly wrote a different note instead, and then she went in to speak to Meg's husband one last time.

She could not explain why she felt so trusting of a man she had seen so infrequently. Perhaps it was the candor with which he had spoken the night before, or the way that he looked at Meg whenever she spoke, or simply the fact that he seemed to regard both women as equals and not innocuous chorus girls.

This time, he looked less surprised to see her, but decidedly more wary. It was with some reluctance that he plucked the note from her outstretched fingers.

She sat across from him with bated breath as he read:  _I need to know the fastest way to Palermo, and I need you to promise that you will keep this discussion in confidence for now. Otherwise, I will figure it out on my own._

Almost immediately, he set the paper down and exhaled through his nostrils. "Miss Daaé, you do not strike me as a reckless person. Still, I must ask: what could possess you to walk willingly into the den of the  _mafiosi_?

She considered this, took the paper back, and wrote,  _A gut feeling_.

He studied her for a long moment. "I saw you sing once, you know," he finally said. She blinked at him in surprise, and he nodded. "De Chagny invited me to see the first production under his patronage.  _Hannibal_ , I believe it was? You brought an authenticity to the role that I had not quite seen before—a performer's intuition, I suspect." He sighed. "If you claim that you have an intuition here, then it is not my place to doubt you. You are not the wanted party in this scenario, after all. But please tell me that you intend for someone to travel with you."

Guiltily, she shook her head.

His dark eyes flashed in warning. "Signorina, an unaccompanied lady is a sitting duck, especially if she is a foreigner."

She wrote a reply and handed it to him.  _I will not be traveling as a lady._

The corner of his mouth quirked back into a smile. "Ahh, Miss Daaé. You do continue to astonish. Well, I will have you know that my wife will want to strangle me after she finds out what I have done." She cringed, and he waved her concern away. "But then I will remind her of two things that I suspect also endear me to her: I do not dictate how others live their lives, and I cannot turn away a friend in need."

Christine's heart fluttered with renewed hope as Alessandro opened a desk drawer and withdrew several clean sheets of paper. "There is a train that leaves for Naples at nine o'clock each morning. The ride will take anywhere from seven to eight and a half hours, which means you may or may not arrive in time to take the overnight steamer to Palermo. It departs at five o'clock every evening."

With an expensive-looking fountain pen, he began to write out the locations and schedules for her. She was to hire a carriage to take her to the docks if she arrived in time; otherwise, she would need to stay the night at a hotel in Naples and wait for the following evening's steamboat.

"The boat should dock in Palermo by noon the following day. You will have to pass through customs, but they are lenient. At no time in any of your travels, signorina, should you let anyone but your hired driver assist with your luggage."

He scrawled what appeared to be a street address at the bottom of the page, and then he handed it to her. "After customs, hire a cab to take you to that address. It is my estate, and you may stay as long as you like. I will send a letter along with you so that the warden and his wife will see to it that you are comfortable."

She looked up at him sharply, both caught off guard and overwhelmed by his generosity. But he was not finished. As he unlocked and fished through another desk drawer, he said, "I will tell my coachman to expect you early in the morning. He can drive you to the train station. And I insist that you take this, but keep it hidden." He motioned for her to hold out her hand, and he pressed a coin purse into her palm.

_Thank you_ , she wrote.  _I will find a way to repay you._

"Please, no. It is a gift, and my honor." He leaned back in his chair. "You do realize, however, that I will have to tell my wife eventually."

Christine nodded and wrote again.  _Give me until nine o'clock._   _I must make that train._

* * *

The rest of the day was agony, knowing that she was to depart in the morning without so much as a goodbye. For once, she was thankful to be relieved of any obligation to speak.

After dinner and drinks, she retired to her room. She had asked Erik for an hour alone, with a promise to come to his room afterward, so that she might bathe and wash her hair. She did so quickly, needing the extra time to pack her satchel and carpet bag for the following morning. Her violin she was to leave behind, as much as the thought pained her; it would only be a burden.

He was at his writing desk with a newspaper when she knocked softly and let herself in. By the time she closed the door and walked over, he had folded the paper and risen to his feet, one hand set against the front of his waistcoat in a manner that only enhanced his already commanding presence.

He seemed to regard her with renewed affection, but his earlier vulnerability had waned, his expression replaced with something that she could only describe as intention. She had told him that she loved him, had struck down another barrier between them, and he now looked very much like a man who longed to know what mutual love  _felt_ like.

She longed to know, too.

He wasted no time. He reached for the gas lamp, plunging the room into near-darkness, and then he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her: tenderly at first, but with building urgency, until the sweeping movements of his broad lips threatened to swallow her whole. Their tongues darted out to meet and tangle in the middle.

He broke free just long enough to lift her by the waist and set her on the desk, and then he resumed kissing her. He wedged his way between her legs, causing her nightgown to ride up to her thighs, and she flushed. Having expected the night to go like this, she had not bothered to wear any undergarments beneath the nightdress. She had a sudden moment of panic that he would be more scandalized than aroused.

His hands roamed as he kissed her: raking through her hair, cradling her neck, skimming down her back. When they gradually slid up her thighs to meet with only bare skin, he pulled away from her mouth and regarded her as though he had just made the most important discovery of the century.

"Why, Christine Daaé," he murmured with mock reproach. His voice, so sultry it was practically a purr, dipped even lower to ask, "Was this intended for me?"

Every bit the coquette in that moment, she bit her bottom lip and nodded.

There was a rumble low in his throat, and he grabbed the hem of the nightdress in order to yank it over her head. She heard the fabric hit the floor some distance away. She held her breath as his eyes raked over her pale and exposed form.

"Always stunning," he whispered. His touch was reverent as he cupped her small breasts, palming the tender flesh there. His eyes bore into hers as his thumbs grazed her nipples, and she gasped, knowing the reaction was what he sought and unable to stop it regardless.

Erik was smiling as he moved in to capture her mouth once more. He kissed her again and again and again, and then his lips sojourned down her throat, over her clavicle, between her breasts and even farther south until he was kneeling on the floor. By the time she realized what he was doing, he had wrapped his arms around her thighs and spread them wide enough for his mouth to dip down between them.

She felt the stroke of what could only be his tongue, and she shuddered and gasped again: in part at the indecency of it all, but even more because she had never felt anything so thrilling in her life. When he made an approving sound in the back of his throat, she felt every vibration. She gripped his hair so tightly that she tugged his wig askew, and she heard him emit a low chuckle as he removed it, along with the mask.

Now free of impediments, he clenched her thighs tighter and moved in again, lingering with slick movements of lips and tongue until she fell back onto her elbows, her neck craning farther back with every jolt of pleasure. She could hardly remember who or where she was, or how she had come to be there.

Euphoria came swiftly, with waves of pleasure that made every nerve in her body sing. Her fingers dug into the edge of the desk as she rode it out. She felt Erik release her still-trembling legs and steady her on the surface of the desk, and then she opened her eyes to see him rise smoothly from the floor.

His eyes were gleaming as he twined his lithe fingers through her hair. She would not be devastated to wipe that smugness from his face, she thought with amusement, and she slid off the desk to stand before him on slightly wobbly legs.

She wasted no time in divesting him of tailcoat and waistcoat and cravat. She needed to see him, to touch and taste him, to commit every last detail of his person to memory.

Erik submitted without protest, his gaze darkening with every garment she removed. When at last she unbuttoned his white shirt and began planting kisses on the sleek planes of his chest, he sucked in an audible breath.

She slid the fabric off of his shoulders, and then she ran her hands down his chest and over abdominal muscles that constricted under her touch. She slipped her fingers beneath his waistband to drag them along the sensitive skin there, listening attentively as his breathing grew heavier and more erratic.

Finally, she moved her hands down to work at his belt buckle and trouser fastenings. He remained motionless, his lean torso and arms glowing white against the blackness of the room, the hard tension of his muscles suggesting some combination of apprehension and barely restrained lust. Christine tucked her thumbs into the now-loosened waistband and tugged at every bit of fabric there, until it fell in a heap around his ankles. He stepped out of it, removing his stockings and shoes as well.

They stood before each other, two angels of music fallen from grace, stripped bare and with no pretense. Again Christine felt that ineffable tug at her insides. She took two steps forward and pressed herself to him, her arms twining around his neck as his encircled her waist. Their lips met, and she felt whole again.

She lost herself in the taste of him, in the feel of cool flesh against warm, in the languid migration of loving hands across skin. The room ceased to exist;  _time_  ceased to exist.

Eventually, gradually, she returned to the present. Still pressed to him, still kissing so deeply that her lips felt swollen, she guided him to the bed. When his calves hit the side, she gave him a gentle nudge and he lay back on the mattress.

She needed to maintain control over the exchange for the time being, to ensure that she properly explored everything that needed exploring, before it was too late—and so she straddled his waist. His lips parted in awe even as his hands traveled up to her hips to anchor her. But no: she was not ready for his interference. She extracted his arms from her sides and splayed them out by his head instead, so that he lay sprawled beneath her and completely at her mercy.

His eyes burned into her. He did not like relinquishing control, but she could tell that he was simultaneously riveted by this shift in dynamics.

She mapped nearly every part of him with hands and tongue and teeth. He remained quiet as she explored, save for his audible breaths and the occasional stifled moan or gasp. He was bony yet soft, sensitive to her touch in all the right places, his skin tasting faintly of salt.

Finally she returned to his mouth, and he let her kiss him for all of three seconds before he broke free to gasp, "Please, Christine, I must have you." She licked her lips and nodded.

She had started to move off of him when Erik grabbed her by the hips to still her. He gently guided her back, closer to his legs, and positioned himself with his hand. Her eyes grew wide as she realized what he intended; she had not even considered it as a possibility.

Gingerly, with palms anchored on his chest for support, she lowered herself onto him. He groaned; her mouth fell open. Her body was pressed to his in the most wonderful places, the overall sensation unrivaled by any of their previous endeavors.

She began to rock against him, clumsily at first but with increasing confidence. When at last she managed a rhythm, she found that she was able to lean forward and kiss him at the same time.

His hands briefly left their post at her waist to fondle her breasts and her backside. When they returned to clench her hips, he began to thrust in time with her movement, making her dizzy with pleasure. She increased her pace, and he groaned. "You are no angel," he growled breathlessly, his forehead glistening with perspiration. "You are a  _goddess_." He bucked against her even harder, and she shattered.

Her vision went white, and her brain seemed to spark as she convulsed around him. Her mouth fell open to emit a series of silent cries until she fell, quivering, against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled until they both lay on their sides, and then he continued to move inside of her.

Their foreheads pressed into one another as he worked. She felt a drop of perspiration cascade down her face, and she did not know whether it came from her brow or his. She was so overwhelmed by sensation that she could scarcely breathe.

Finally he froze, and then he clutched her with a sudden, desperate tenacity as he drove forward one last time, a sustained and breathless cry erupting from his lips. He shuddered against her, deflating until he lay motionless and panting while she planted gentle kisses on his lips and nose and gnarled cheekbone.

He eventually summoned one last surge of energy to kiss her back. "I love you, Christine," he whispered, and then he drifted into easy slumber.

Slumber did not come easily to her, however. She remained largely awake until dawn, when she reluctantly extracted herself from Erik's side.

Back in her room, she quickly washed up and put on her one remaining change of men's traveling clothes—the ones that had not been stained with another person's blood. Then she withdrew from her satchel a note she had composed earlier, and she slipped back into Erik's room to set it on the pillow that she had just occupied.

_Feeling unwell_ , it said.  _Returning to my room so as not to wake you. I will likely sleep late; please do not delay breakfast on my account._  At the very least, this would ensure that she got on the train before Erik or Meg suspected anything—as long as they did not check in on her. She had stuffed pillows under the covers to resemble a sleeping figure, but it would only take a glance up close to see through her ruse.

The note contained one final line, because she needed him to know.  _Lest you become convinced that it was a dream: I love you._

She had signed her name with her usual feminine flourish, resisting the urge to add the things that she longed to tell him but could not: to have faith in her judgment. To spare Meg and Madame Giry and Alessandro his wrath once he learned of her disappearance. Not to follow her, though she suspected that he would regardless. She simply had to hope that she could outrun him.

Christine cast one last glance at her fallen angel:  _hers_ , now and forever, no matter what happened next. She could not guarantee it, but she had hope that she would see him again. She gathered her things and headed downstairs to board the coach that would take her to the train station.


	19. Naples

"And what fantastic mind-kingdoms have you explored today, Little Lotte?"

It had been a favorite question of Gustave Daaé's, and whenever he asked it, Christine would have a different answer for him: a garden whose blossoms would open only to certain notes, creating a pulsating symphony of color if one strolled singing through it. A vast, weathered ghost-ship that sailed not the high seas, but rather the English moors, under the cover of the purply-grey rainclouds that swept in over the heather. Beautiful, glimmering sky-mermaids who swam through clouds.

His favorite of her daydreams had been the nameless and faceless angel with a voice like spun silk, who alighted on earth to grace chosen mortals with his divine melodies—and when they heard his voice, they, too, would be blessed with the gift of song. Whenever father and daughter spoke of the angel, Gustave would smile the warm smile that had etched lovely creases into his face over the years and say, "When I am in heaven, child, I will be sure and send the angel of music to you."

When her angel of music had found her desperate and alone in the bowels of the Opera Populaire, it was as though she had dreamed him into being.

Christine had spent much of her life inside of her own head. It was impossible not to; she was often alone, but more than that, she was eager to watch and listen, eager to review in her mind later the scenes she had observed and the melodies she had heard.

Singing had been her one unwavering connection to the outside world. It had forced her to communicate and to give a voice to her thoughts and feelings. And when she had seen how positively others reacted to her talent, it had convinced her that she had worth.

The loss of her voice, of course, had severed that tie. Strangers and acquaintances alike had been perplexed by her inability to speak, so unsure of how to interact with her that they often avoided it altogether. As circumstance forced her to withdraw even deeper into herself, she had almost imperceptibly shifted from dwelling inside her mind to becoming its prisoner.

She had thought of her fallen angel often in those days. What was it that he had said to her upon their final descent into his lair?  _Down we plunge to the prison of my mind_. All those years, with no company but his own sharp-edged misery! It was a wonder that he had not gone mad long before. It was only music, she surmised, that had kept him alive and coherent.

Without  _her_  voice, without  _her_  music, she had become trapped in a doorless room made of two-way mirrors: she could see out, but no one could see in.

Until him.

It had taken a near-catastrophe for him to finally see her, but Erik had returned to shatter the glass and pull her through the wreckage. Perhaps that gesture had only served to join their respective prison cells, but at least now they would not have to be alone in gazing out at a world that did not see them back. Or, better yet, they could look to each other.

At least, that was her eventual hope.

Christine's stomach fluttered with anxiety as she stepped off of the train in Naples. It had pulled into the station at exactly five o'clock, when the steamer was scheduled to depart for Palermo. She would have to stay the night and catch the next one, with the hope that tomorrow's train from Rome would arrive just as late. She suspected that Erik would be on it; even with the loss of one day as he waited for the next morning train to depart, it would still be the fastest way for him to reach Naples.

Armed with a pencil, the written information from Alessandro, and a rudimentary knowledge of conversational Italian, she managed to hire a carriage to take her to a hotel near the steamboat's designated port. She was surprised by how many bystanders offered to help her with her luggage, and she clung to it as Meg's husband had instructed.

Naples was perhaps lovely enough to have featured as one of her mind-kingdoms. The buildings were bone-white and pale yellow and occasionally a more vibrant terracotta, all offset by an azure sky. The stench of city living was  _almost_  counteracted by the briny sea air, and she had yet to glimpse the water. Once, in a fleeting gap between buildings, her skin prickled with exhilaration as she caught sight of Mount Vesuvius looming in the east.

She was able to book a room for the night, albeit at a suspiciously steep price, and after she dropped off her luggage she took to the streets to see the sights and find dinner.

The street vendors hawking newspapers and matches and seafood were plentiful. Christine shied away from many of them, trying to supplant her usual apologetic smile with a more masculine indifference. Based on the wonderful aroma alone, she ended up purchasing a paper cone of fried rice balls filled with tomato sauce and mincemeat and peas. Then she took her supper down to the docks to watch the boats as they entered and left port. Her mind raced with thoughts of what she might do and say once she got to Palermo.

She had felt an instant connection with Piangi's aging mother the moment she'd heard that the woman had ceased to speak following her son's death. It had been months since the incident, and perhaps the sudden muteness was no more, but Christine still felt a compelling need to meet her and share in her grief. Signora Piangi, she suspected, was her means of access to the mafia, and she could only pray that the woman would let her in.

She could not accomplish that with Erik present.

She had fled because she knew that he would not be able to cope with her charging off to Palermo on his account. In truth, though, she was doing it as much for herself as she was for him. She tried not to think about what he might have done had he intercepted her plans, because to do so would be to acknowledge that she might still, in some way, be his captive.

For now, she would revel in the fact that she was navigating a foreign city alone. She grew even more giddy to realize that her woefully demure nature might be an advantage when she negotiated Erik's fate, and for a moment, she felt almost untouchable.

Despite the strangeness of her surroundings, Christine slept easily that night and well into the next day. It had been nearly two weeks since the abduction that had set current events into motion, and the stress had begun to take its toll on her body. She felt no shame in holing up in her room to await the evening steamboat departure, even with the whole of Naples outside her door; she was certain that the view from the bay alone would be worth the trip.

When it came time for her to walk to the docks, she stepped outside with a flutter of anxiety in her chest but a hesitant confidence in her head. She felt like an explorer from one of her childhood novels—or better yet, an adventurer.

She could see the docks up ahead and had one more building to pass when an arm shot out and pulled her by the wrist into the shadows.

Despite her immediate and frenzied panic, she managed to twist her arm free of her assailant's grasp; it was a maneuver she had practiced again and again. She dropped her carpet bag, and she ran.

She was only a few steps in when she was stunted by a pair of powerful arms wrapping around her torso. They pulled her back against an unrelenting frame, where her captor spoke in her ear. "Your efforts are commendable, Christine, but please do not make me pursue you any further."

She froze, feeling her heart sink into the pit of her stomach.

Erik released her, and she slowly turned to face him. His expression was guarded, but his eyes were wild and desperate as they searched hers. "Why?" he finally asked. It was nearly a whisper; his bottom lip trembled. He turned aside to lift a broad palm to the exposed side of his face, and he leaned into the improvised mask of skin and bone on one quivering breath.

She reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. He stiffened at her touch, and when he lowered the hand-mask to face her again, there was anger in his gaze. She could not help but shrink back against the wall behind her.

"What, precisely, was your plan?" he snapped. "To stroll into a den of crime and talk these men out of retribution?"

When she boiled everything down, she supposed, that  _was_  an accurate summary of her strategy. She nodded.

He reeled back in disbelief. "You do not even have a  _voice_ , Christine! Of all the foolish notions!"

She knew that his frustration came from a place of concern, but his words stung regardless.  _Please trust me_ , she signed, and she pleaded with her eyes. It was all that she could think to do.

She was rewarded with a cruel bark of laughter. "Indeed?" he asked, and he withdrew from his tailcoat a folded slip of paper. He opened it to show her the letter that she had left him early the day before: a bald-faced lie, followed by that one note of reassurance.  _Lest you become convinced that it was a dream: I love you._ The ink was smudged, the page crumpled and worn, as though it had been handled dozens of times.

"How am I to trust the woman who left me  _this_? How am I to know—" His voice faltered, and he swallowed. "How am I to know which of the statements you have made to me recently, if any, have been true?" He stared at her with open desperation now. His arm fell limp to one side, the page slowly crumpling in his fist. His normally rigid shoulders seemed to slump beneath an unseen weight.

There was a lump in her throat as she scrambled to locate the notebook in her satchel.  _Surely you must know_ , she wrote,  _that I would not be here if I did not care for you._

" _Care_  is not what you wrote!" he roared, his fists clenching even tighter. Then his voice dipped lower, softer. "It is not what you signed into this palm." He unfurled his hand to show her the broad expanse of skin upon which she had branded with her confession. "Tell me, Christine, because it means  _everything_  now: was that particular sentiment, the one that brought me to my knees before you, also a stretch of truth?"

There was hardly any hesitation on her part, yet she was already crying when she shook her head and lunged forward to throw her arms around his neck.

He held her fiercely in return, fingers clutching fistfuls of her shirt. When she pulled away, his hands moved to her hips, anchoring her so that he could lean in to kiss her. The easy sweep of his lips pressed her back against the building, and with welcoming tenderness she began to move her mouth in tandem with his. She willed him to accept the apology in her embrace.

They were startled by the clip-clopping of passing horse hooves on the paving-stones of the adjacent street. Abruptly, he broke away from her and drew back on a sharp inhalation of breath. "You left without so much as a word! For God's sake, Christine, what was I supposed to think?"

Back to the notebook it was, then.  _I knew that you would try to stop me. You cannot go to Palermo, and you know it._

"Ah, but if I recall correctly, it was  _your_  life that they made an attempt on, while sparing mine."

It was a fair point, and she had considered it often over the past few days. But if Piangi did indeed have relatives in positions of power, as Erik had speculated, then they could have dispatched others to bring him to Sicily. It was not difficult to believe that they would want to look into the eyes of the man who had murdered their kin, and to end his life themselves. Even  _Il Gatto_ , as he had detailed his gut-wrenching methods of torture, had not spoken of killing Erik. No, what made the most sense to her was that lackeys had been sent to abduct the masked man and do away with any extras.

If she showed up without him, presenting herself as Christine Daaé, then she was once again useful as bait. It was not a position that she was eager to put herself in again, but it was a position that could afford her the audience that she needed. And for once, she had much to say.

_It is not your choice_ , she told Erik.  _It is mine. I have that free will, and I insist that you let me go in your stead._

He exhaled deeply and started to pace before her. Christine began to worry about making it to the steamboat on time, but she could only watch and wait while his mind likely spun through every conceivable way forward from this moment.

"Give me one day," he finally said. "One day in your company, with the knowledge that you love me...and no other pretense. If you have not changed your mind by the time the steamer departs for Palermo tomorrow evening, then I will cease trying to persuade you."

She blinked at him in surprise. It seemed a wholly reasonable compromise, and she supposed that she could afford an extra day. And if their pursuers had not found them after several days at Meg's house in Rome, then they were not likely nearby. Besides, who would expect the prey to head  _toward_  the predator's den?

She nodded her agreement.

His sigh of relief was barely audible. "Good," he said. "I had my luggage sent directly from the train to a hotel where we might stay tonight. In fact, I expect there to be a room waiting for me, with the handsome fee that I paid. But we need not go there yet. Come."

He bought her a bottle of wine and a paper cone of crisply fried squid and salted fish, and then he took her down to the docks to watch the boats coasting in and out of the bay. To their left, Vesuvius remained a beautifully hazy and foreboding monolith in the distance.

The food was excellent, the wine even more so. Erik had insisted that the vendor uncork the bottle right there, and at the docks the pair passed it between them, taking ample sips while the sea breeze whipped across their skin. There was no awkwardness now, no joking of her heathenism—only quiet, peaceful companionship.

At length, she polished off the seafood and wiped the grease from her fingers in order to write.  _Did Alessandro tell you that I was here?_

"There was no need. I suspect that the entire household learned instantly of your whereabouts once his wife found out. Quite a disturbance, it was." He took a cavalier sip from the bottle, and Christine suppressed a smile. "That is not to say, of course, that I did not give him a piece of my own mind."

She skewered him with a look, and he handed her the bottle. "Ah, but you think so little of me, my Christine! I will have you know that I did not strike him, not even once." Satisfied, she put the vessel to her lips. "And if I did shake him by the collar, well, it was nothing that he did not deserve." Down the bottle went, and her glare returned.

Erik simply shrugged. "He said that he could not have stopped you short of using physical force, and I believed him." When she stared at him in disbelief, he added, "He told me that you wielded 'such gentle yet commanding intent,' and the utter truth in his words swept the wind from my sails, so to speak."

He brushed his knuckles against her arm, a gesture so quick as to seem accidental to a passerby, but she knew that he would not so much as lift a finger without purpose. "That gentle intent," he murmured, "has a way of driving me mad, in every way possible."

They continued with this manner of conversation for some time, interspersed with prolonged periods of tranquil silence, while they watched the blue of the water deepen as the sun set behind them. Finally, when a chill rode in on the inky waves and she began to shiver, he took her to his hotel, where a room with his luggage awaited.

He waited patiently as she washed up, and then without a word, he stripped her down to her chemise, his gaze following his fingertips as they trailed down her bare shoulders and arms to make her skin prickle. She watched as he proceeded to strip himself down to his drawers. Then he pulled her into bed, where he held her: his front flush against her back, his arm curled tightly around her waist, his unmasked cheek resting in the tender dip between her neck and shoulder. Occasionally he would press his softly inflamed lips to her skin, but his hands never wandered. He clung to her as though she might evaporate if he let go.

The entire time, she lay as still as possible while the tears rolled down her cheeks—for she knew that when he  _did_  finally let her go, she would have to disappear again.

* * *

Early in the morning, Erik hired a carriage for the two-hour drive to her destination of choice: Pompeii. She had read about it as a girl and could hardly believe that it was real: a city lost to time, buried and hardened by the mud and ash from a landmark that the inhabitants had likely looked upon with fondness—until it stole the last breaths from their lungs.

To her surprise, Erik had never been there. "I tend to circumvent those attractions that require long periods out of doors," he explained on the ride there. Her guilt must have been evident because he added, "It is a small price to pay for your company." His eyes softened, and the smallest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of those misshapen lips. "I will not soon forget your expression as you caught sight of the Alps, or of the whole of Florence from above. A man could live on those two memories alone."

When they stepped into the excavated portion of the ancient Roman town, Christine felt as though all of the oxygen had been sucked right out of her. It was hauntingly sad and desolate, while at the same time she could almost feel and hear the thrum of bustling city life from nearly two millennia prior. She looked to Erik. His eyes were wide, his lips delicately parted; it was the closest she had ever seen him to awestruck.

Whatever she had expected, the breadth of the ruins far surpassed it. The pair traversed streets paved with large, polygonal slabs of lava-stone in order to peer into roofless dwellings of brick and stone and stucco, into shops still outfitted with their original marble-topped tables. All the while, Erik filled her in on the bits of history that he knew.

The day had been slightly crisp when they had left Naples, but with the sun now beating down from a cloudless sky, Christine grew quite warm. She would occasionally glance at Erik, wondering how uncomfortable he must be with his black wool and sun-shy complexion. She supposed that she would never hear a related complaint from the man who had unflinchingly traversed a swath of Paris with a stab wound only weeks before.

They could not see all of the town in the handful of hours that they had allotted, but it was just as well for Christine and her aching feet. She and Erik trekked back toward the entrance and made one last stop at the museum there, which they had intentionally saved for last.

The first room was interesting enough, but uninspiring: casts and models of doors and windows and shop-shutters from the ancient town. The second room, however, would be forever etched into her memory.

In it were the preserved casts of eight human corpses and one dog, each body locked in the same position it had been eighteen-hundred years ago when its owner took his or her last breath. The more she stared at them, the more she seemed to feel the volcanic ash choking her own lungs, and her heart began to race. Beside her, Erik's hand twitched as though it yearned to reach for hers, but to the other people in the museum she was a man, and so she fervently swallowed her panic.

With each figure she passed, she wondered about the circumstances of the deceased. Had they been huddled in their homes, or tearing through the streets? Alone or beside loved ones? When she looked to Erik again, he stared back at her with a quiet solemnity, and understanding passed between them: even in death, love would be a blessing and a comfort.

Then they came upon a child.

Here, Christine lost all semblance of control. Tears spilled freely down her sun-pinked cheeks. She cried for the child and its torturous last moments, and she cried for the mother who had knowingly lost her precious babe to a tidal wave of mud and ash.

She cried over the unfairness of it all and of life in general, and she cried because she should be grateful to be alive and instead she still felt such resentment over her career and her voice and everything involving the brooding genius of a man who stood next to her and  _loved her_  with more fervor than she would ever possibly understand. And she cried because, despite all of that, she knew that she must be the one to reach out to a different mother, still alive, who had lost her precious babe, as grown-up as he may have been.

She did not know what Erik saw in those infantile remains, but he seemed distracted for the remainder of their tour—perhaps even shaken, if such a thing was possible.

They lunched at a place just outside the ruins, and then they met up with the cab driver for their ride back to Naples. Erik sat opposite Christine as they embarked, but he did not protest when, ten minutes in, she moved to sit next to him. The atmosphere of the cab was heavy with the weight of the things they had seen.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he began toying with his black-stoned ring, turning it in slow circles around his little finger. Finally, he slipped it off to pinch it between thumb and forefinger, where the gold band glinted in the window-light. He stared at it with great intent, and she found herself holding her breath.

She had never thought to ask about the ring's significance—why he wore it in the first place. She could not ask now, not during a moment of such tense vulnerability. She was already bracing herself for whatever he might say or ask. She had liked the feel of that ring on her finger, yes, but seeing it now evoked flashes of terror and fire and that face—that  _face_ —when she had betrayed him.

But just as subtly as he had taken it off, he slid the ring back onto his finger, and he set his hand back on the bench beside him. "I shall go to Palermo," he announced. "Alone." When she snapped her head up to look at him, he added, "You ought to take the train back to Rome tomorrow morning."

She was digging her notebook out of her satchel even as he continued to speak. "This is not your cross to bear, Christine, and I could never live with myself if I let you walk into harm's way."

_I am more certain than ever that I must be the one to go_ , she responded.

His wide eyes looked to her, pleading. "I cannot," he said. "Oh, Christine, I cannot let you do this."

_If you go_ , she wrote,  _I will only follow you._

He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. "Forgive me," he moaned. "Oh, please forgive me." Then his eyelids fluttered open to regard her, and he whispered, "Very well, then."

She was stunned. It was what she had petitioned for all along, yes, but she was stunned regardless. She reached out to hold his hand in reassurance, but he could no longer look at her. Eventually, she fell asleep against his shoulder.

Back in Naples, they went up to the hotel room to collect her things and share one last bottle of wine, at Erik's request. He poured, and she packed. "Whatever I may say or do in response to these insistences of yours," he said quietly as he handed her a glass of the red, "please know that I am, and have always been, extraordinarily proud of you."

She smiled, and they brought their glasses together in a small toast.

She blinked in surprise at her first swallow. The wine was far more bitter than she was used to: a local quality, perhaps? Yet there was something familiar about it, too. She glanced at Erik, but he was sipping at his glass with no change in expression. Christine decided to grin and bear it, and the two of them sat in neighboring chairs to drink their bitter wine in the last solemn minutes before her departure.

She drank quickly, trying to quell all thoughts of leaving him and instead focus on the journey to come. The alcohol began to make her drowsy, but she knew that it would pass once she stepped out into the fresh air—though drinking before a sea voyage, she realized, had perhaps not been the wisest decision.

Her head began to swim as she neared the bottom of the glass, and she set it down on the carpet. Erik was watching her now. Her vision began going hazy at the edges, and suddenly all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep for days. She leaned back in her chair, willing her eyelids to stay open, but they would not.

It was only then that she realized why she had recognized the bitter component of the wine: she had tasted it several times in the wake of  _Don Juan Triumphant_ , with doctors administering drops to calm her nerves and help her sleep.

It was laudanum.


	20. Resurgence

When Christine awoke, it took her some time to process where she was: in a bed, fully dressed save for her shoes, in Erik's hotel room. She sat up, the covers still draped over her lap. It was night, and a slice of ghostly moonlight illuminated the half-shell mask facing her from the opposite corner.

"How do you feel?" Erik sat in a chair with long legs crossed, laced fingers resting on one knee. "Any grogginess? Headache?"

He was entirely too clinical for a man who had just drugged her. It was unnerving. But she did not feel anything aside from the usual haze of sleep departing her body, so she shook her head.

"Good, good." He watched her go rigid with burgeoning anger, her face hot with the newfound knowledge of his betrayal. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. "I know what you must think of me at present, Christine. I have tried to steel myself against your reaction, but I must confess that it is still quite difficult to bear. Please understand...I was desperate. I had no choice."

Did he not realize how ridiculous he sounded?  _She_  was the one who had been afforded no choice! After everything that they had been through, after her impassioned declaration of free will, he still had such little regard for her autonomy.

Angry tears stung her eyes. In a fit of indignation entirely unlike her, she reached down to snatch one of her shoes from the floor, and she hurled it at him. It bounced harmlessly off of his leg, but still he winced.

_Why?_  she signed, her hand movements tense and furious.

"So that you would miss the steamboat departure. You were so intent on boarding, and I did not know how else to stop you short of physical force." He lowered one leg and leaned forward in his chair. "I will see you onto the morning train back to Rome, one way or another. I warn you: I can render a person immobile using a single pressure point. But I beg of you not to force my hand, Christine; I do not want to leave a defenseless woman alone like that on a train."

Alone. So he still intended to go to Sicily. She looked around for her satchel, and he brought it to her without a moment's doubt, standing placid and patient at her side while she retrieved her notebook and wrote.

Her jaw quivered as she thrust the page at him.  _If you do this,_ it said _, it will change things between us irrevocably._

"Yes," he said quietly. "Once more you will leave cursing my existence, and once more I will soothe my broken soul with the knowledge that you are safe and happy. At least...I hope that you will be happy. In time."

Up until that moment, she had not realized that it was possible to both love and despise someone so intensely at the same time. Her mind had twisted into a confusing maelstrom of emotions that unseated her and left her unable to formulate a response. Instead, she pointed to the empty wine glass and signed.  _Laudanum?_

"An elixir of my own making. It would take a hefty dose of laudanum to render one unconscious, and possibly a fatal one when mixed with wine. I would not toy so rashly with your life." Erik tilted his head. "Did you taste the laudanum, then?"

She nodded, and his lips pursed in disapproval. "Ah. Noted for future revision." There was a weariness to his voice.

"I carry two vials with me at all times," he continued. He reached toward a nearby writing-desk to grab a tiny glass bottle, and when he held it between thumb and forefinger, she could see that it was empty. "One is a sleeping agent"—he set it down again and reached into his tailcoat—"and one is poison."

Erik held up a new vial for her to see, this one filled with amber liquid. Then he walked into the small bathroom, where she could see him pouring the contents into the sink. When he returned with the empty vessel, he announced, "I am, quite literally, extracting the poison from my life. There is no need for it any longer."

He sat once more, and she studied this new resignation of his. Where was it coming from?

He must have sensed her curiosity, for he launched into a careful monologue. "When we started our day yesterday," he began, "my aim was to persuade you to leave the country with me. Surely my pursuers would track me only so far." He was absently twirling the black-stoned ring around his finger again.

"I had the most ridiculous notion that perhaps if I asked again, you might agree to be wed, if only for the sake of easier travel." He pulled the band off of his finger and held it up for her to see. "I very nearly offered you this ring a second time: this damnable, polluted farce of a betrothal! Do you know why I have kept it all this time, Christine, after everything that transpired?"

She shook her head, and he let out a caustic laugh. "Nor I!" He rubbed at the gold with the pad of his thumb. "At least, I did not know for some time. Ah, but objects carry their histories with them, do they not? And I suspect that this one bound itself to me because I had yet to hear its tale."

Erik dropped the ring on the floor, where it rooted itself on the thick carpet with a tiny  _thump_ , and he watched it as his voice grew deep and somber. "But I have now. And despite what either of us might recall of that fateful evening on stage, it is not a tale of obsession or betrayal or desperation. Oh, no! It is a tale of manslaughter." She held her breath as his expression twisted into something terrible that she could not name.

"I remembered," he whispered, and he looked up at her now with watering eyes. "Oh, Christine, I  _remember_."

Her stomach flipped.  _Piangi._

She had not meant to sign his name; her fingers seemed to move of their own accord. Erik nodded. "I can only describe it as a trance. I had but one goal, which was to insert myself into the scene transpiring on stage, and my body saw to it that I cleared all obstacles." He swallowed, and his gaze drifted back down to the ring on the floor. "I saw him, but I did not  _see_  him. In my mind's eye, he was merely an obstruction."

She could almost picture it: Erik, stiff and clinical in his immaculate black attire, making his way to the stage like an automaton at the command of an unknown master, waiting for a convenient opening. Enter Piangi. Her stomach grew ill at the thought; she did not wish for him to continue. But he did, and she squeezed her eyes shut against his words.

"I remembered my hands tightening the noose around his neck, and then my mind conjured an image of those same accursed hands constricting  _your_  throat, as your assailant must have done that night in Rome, and  _oh_ , Christine, I feel as though memory has thrust itself down my throat to rip out my insides! True, I was a raving, despicable wretch who loathed nearly every soul in that establishment—myself most of all!—but God help me, I did not actually  _hate_  him."

He paused as she lifted a hand to mask her eyes, for she was crying now: for Piangi, for Carlotta, for Erik, for everything and everyone. He did not move to comfort her. After a minute or two she made a concerted effort to compose herself, and when she glanced at him again, the guilt was plain in his face. Guilt and resignation.

"I have hidden myself for the entirety of my bleak existence," he said, "and I do so tire of it, Christine. Perhaps it is time to stop."

She began to suspect that deep down she had known, since the ride back from Pompeii, that this was to be the path forward. It had been evident in how he carried himself, his body devoid of the strange, crackling tension that so often left her dizzy and breathless. And he had caved to her demands far too easily. But to hear him speak with such devastating finality, after everything that they had shared and endured together: it shattered something within her.

She was shaking her head in rapid protest even as she dashed over to him. She was not sure whether it was a plea or a concession when she curled her fingers around the lapels of his tailcoat, pressing her cheek to the fabric at his collarbone, but she wept regardless: this time for the two of them.

Erik wrapped his arms around her and sighed into her hair. "Ah, my darling angel," he murmured, and he kissed the crown of her head. "I am far more temperate now for having been with you; did you know that?" And she did. She was reluctant to take all of the credit, but it was undeniable that his temperament had cooled.

"I have not the slightest idea when I fell in love with you." His blunt admission, sounding quite unlike him, prompted her to lift her head. A faint smile played at his lips. "Ah, but only because your earnest sweetness crept under my skin from the very start. It is hard to pinpoint when exactly it overtook me, but I began to seek your presence as fervently as an addict might seek out his next indulgence."

He sighed. "How often I have cursed this wretched life of mine, when in fact I should be grateful, for otherwise I would have never tested the limits of your compassion. I daresay there is not another soul on this earth who understands as well as I do how wondrous you are."

She did not know how to respond. He was building to something, and she did not like it.

"I spend every day preoccupied with how to make myself worthy in your eyes. Oh, do not look at me with such confusion, my love, when we both know that you have been holding back. But I do not blame you in the slightest." He moved his hands up to her shoulders, guiding her back just far enough that he could look her square in the eyes. "If I do not make this journey, and meet this end, then you shall never have cause to forgive me. I am not certain that I can live with that."

She felt the truth in his words even as her mind tried to deny it. She wished that he would have made his impassioned speech the night before, though she supposed that she would still have insisted on going to Palermo. Yes, she hated what he had done to her...but she could not hate  _him_ , not for this.

She wiped the remaining tears from her face and moved away to fetch the notebook.  _At least let me come with you_ , she wrote.

He shook his head. "You know I cannot do that. For once, I will see to it that this burden is mine alone. Please, Christine." He tossed the notebook onto the bed so that he could take her hands. "You must let me go."

In the end, she surrendered. There was nothing else that she could do; he had made it quite clear that he would see her onto that train, one way or another.

"I know that I have no right to request anything of you," he said, "but if you would grant me one final scrap of your compassion...I should very much like to kiss you before we leave the privacy of this room."

She almost laughed at the simplicity of his request, in light of everything that had transpired between them. But then, she supposed that were he not about to turn himself in to the mafia, she would still be hurling shoes at him. She nodded.

With faintly trembling hands, he reached out to cup either side of her face, just as she had done that first time in his home. His kiss was tender and gracious, the warm wetness of his mouth slanting across her lips. But there was also a lingering heaviness to it, a sort of poignant finality. It was becoming harder for her to breathe with every passing minute.

"Oh, Christine." Would she ever tire of the reverence with which he breathed out her name? "I would memorize every last inch of you if I could."

In truth, she had been thinking the same about him. They had some time, and she did not want to the memory of their last hours together to sting with regret.

She took his hand and pulled him onto the bed beside her, and there they lay, facing each other in quiet study. Her gaze darted back and forth from the ice-blue eye to the brown one. The former had always seemed the most formidable of the pair, but now it fixed on her with admiration just as deep as that of its warmer counterpart.

"One of my greatest regrets," he said, "is exploiting your voice for my own libretto, when I ought to have let you express yours." He exhaled through the porcelain nose-holes. "How often I have wished that I could read your thoughts of late. Particularly now."

But Christine did not want to think at that moment, nor would she have wanted to speak, especially now that she had so effectively learned to express herself through touch.

She moved to nestle one of his hands in her palms, marveling as she always did at how the broad span of his fingers eclipsed hers. She let the pad of her thumb graze that cool, weathered skin, following the ridges and valleys of his sharp knuckles. Her fingertips skimmed down the back of his hand to chart its blue veins and trace the circumference of his wrist: the last of the skin exposed below his neck. She was hardly satisfied with that.

He did not so much as flinch when she moved to take off the mask, and when she settled back to take in the ravaged half of his face, his eyes shone with fierce adoration. She touched the meandering grooves of his cheek, the puckered flesh around his eye, the indentations carved alongside his misshapen nose. The skin on this side was more tender, and she wondered how the brush of her fingertips must feel to him.

When at last she came upon his lips—those blessed, rugged lips—he caught her fingers and pressed them to his mouth. "My turn," he said, and she was more than happy to concede.

His agile fingers followed the line of her jaw to make a soft loop around the back of her ear, and then they burrowed into her thick crop of hair, where he ran his thumb through errant strands. His palm cupped her head as though it belonged to a newborn. "I adore you just like this," he murmured, and for perhaps the first time ever, she began to feel a sort of fondness for her short hair.

Erik helped her remove her jacket and vest so that he might unbutton her collar and caress her throat and clavicle. She tugged at his clothes until he, too, was divested of his outer layers. They continued with this manner of alternation, using only the most unhurried and feather-light of touches, until they lay skin to skin, cool against warm, man against woman. Only then did he kiss her.

They remained intertwined like this for some time, cleaving to each other with such tenacity that when he finally moved to take her, it took only a slight shift in angle for them to become as intimate as possible. They both inhaled at the change in sensation—a euphoria only enhanced by the fact that they still faced one another—but they would savor it this time. Their movements remained slow and reverent.

It felt like she was home.

"Oh, Christine," he whispered between hitched breaths. "My love, my angel, my muse." His hand cradled her neck, and she wondered whether any of these physical connections would have transpired had she been able to speak with him.

Afterward, neither of them moved from the bed. Both were sated; he had an arm draped over her waist, and she traced the sharp line of his collarbone with one finger.

"Christine," he said, and she craned her neck upward. "Tell me your favorite color."

She could not help it; she grinned, and he smiled back at her, and she signed  _blue_  into his hand. Then she looked to him expectantly.

"Mine has long been red, but I daresay that the charming serenity of your blue is starting to infiltrate my aesthetics."

_Purple, then?_ It was a joking compromise.

"God, no. I shall pretend you did not even suggest that."

He proceeded to pepper her with questions, ones that she could answer in only a word or two, about her favorite arias and composers and authors and paintings. They carried on in this way until dawn breached the curtains, chasing away the shadows in which the lovers had found safety and solace, and lending new meaning to the phrase  _cold, unfeeling light_.

The rest of the morning was a cheerless blur of separation, of washing and dressing and packing. Christine strapped her leather satchel across her torso, as always, and insisted on carrying her carpet bag because men did not hold bags for other men. Erik conceded, and he led the way into the hall.

On her way out of the room, a glint of metal on the floor caught her eye: his ring. With only a moment's hesitation, she stooped to retrieve and pocket it. She could not have said why she did so, except that it seemed inappropriate for anyone else to have it, and so she would appoint herself its guardian.

They were both tense and motionless on the carriage ride to the train station. Christine still felt an awful pang in her abdomen from the knowledge that he was sending her off against her will. Had this been any other occasion, she would have been furious. She bit her tongue—figuratively speaking—only because she knew that this might very well be the last time she saw him.

When he finally spoke, it was only to discuss financial affairs, and she reined in her disappointment. "I will find a reputable bank this afternoon and attempt to settle my accounts," he told her. "Everything will be transferred to you. Remain with your friends in Rome until you are contacted."

She nodded and let her gaze drift to the window. There was no use in protesting at this point.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him watching her. He did not speak again until they were pulling up to the train station. "It is not lost on me," he said, "that I have committed innumerable acts of treachery to keep you by my side, only to force your exit not once, but twice." He offered the slightest smile of apology, and his eyes glimmered with a sadness that threatened to eviscerate her. "My life is a series of spectacular failures." The cab came to a stop, and he jumped out.

Their interactions at the platform were restrained, given the circumstances; they were reduced to furtive, meaningful glances; wishes for safe travels; awkward pauses. "Promise me that you will play your violin," Erik said, and she nodded her agreement. Then she boarded the train that would take her back to Rome.

Her heart seemed to have plummeted from her chest to land at her feet, where it now dragged anchor as she trudged over to the nearest vacant bench. She had a fleeting hope when she sat and looked out the window that Erik would be gone and she could sneak out, but he was watching her and she suspected that he would be until the train trundled out of the station.

He did exactly that. His face remained impassive even as the engine hissed, and when the cars started moving he touched the brim of his hat to tilt it in her direction. Soon he was nothing but an imposing figure in black, and then the angle of the train obscured her vision and he was gone.

Christine stifled a sob and lay back on the bench, without a care as to what anyone else might think. For all they knew, she was an unrefined city ruffian. Boys could get away with so many more indiscretions.

She had been foolish to think that she could outsmart or outrun Erik. He was a master of evasion, while she...she had always been far too liberal with her trust, hadn't she? But then, her instinct had rarely led her astray. She tried to ignore its subtle tug at her mind now, but she still could not shake the feeling that she was meant to be the one to go to Palermo. Her plan had flaws, certainly, but at least she  _had_  one. Erik had given up.

From her reclined position, she could see a hatch in the ceiling of the passenger car. It reminded her of him, how he had opened one when he thought they might have to escape the train departing Paris. It seemed so long ago now, but she recalled his words to her:  _It would not be the first time that I have had to jump from a moving train._

She sat up in haste, and her ever-quickening pulse began to ring in her ears. Did she  _dare_?

Instinct had told her to kiss Erik in the face of an impossible choice in the dank underground. Instinct had saved her life after the ambush in Rome. And right now, her instinct was quite adamant that she was not meant to return to Rome—at least, not without Erik.

Her mind raced. If she could somehow secure private passage to Palermo, then perhaps she could beat him there. He had finances to attend to, after all, and she suspected that he would prefer the anonymity of the public steamboat, which had private overnight accommodations, to the attention that he would receive on a private charter.

She grabbed her things and barreled toward the observation car at the back of the train.

There was a lone old man gazing out the windows when Christine arrived, but once she seated herself nearby to await his departure, he flashed her a polite smile and saw himself out. She immediately pushed through the door to the back platform.

There was a guardrail around the small space, but it had a sizable gap on either side. When she peered over the edge, it was clear why: each side of the platform had a pair of descending steps. The bottom of each set was still elevated off the ground, but it was a far more reasonable height for someone who might consider jumping.

She nearly laughed at the thought. Who in their right mind would consider jumping? This was mad.  _She_  must be going mad, surely. But Erik's own survival was rooted in deviation from the norm—if not flat-out defiance of it—and this method seemed to have worked out fairly well for her of late. After all, she was alive, and wearing trousers to boot.

The city was already receding, with the scenery giving way to open, grassy field and farmland. Farther ahead, the land was dotted with shrubbery and fences and other obstacles to a safe landing. If she was going to do this, she had to do it now.

She slipped the satchel strap over her head, moved closer to the opening in the guardrail, and hurled both satchel and carpet bag as far away from the train as she could. Both landed safely in the grass.

She made a snap decision that she would be better off gaining momentum on the platform than she would jumping from a standstill on the steps. She reared back as far as possible to allow herself a tiny running start, and then her lithe dancer's legs sprang into motion and she jumped off of the side of the platform.

She flew through the air as though propelled by her sudden terror and regret:  _This was a terrible, reckless, shortsighted decision and I am going to break my neck and die here._

But she did not die. She covered her head and tucked in her knees and managed to pivot into a sideways roll that was jarring upon impact but did not break any of her bones, though she would certainly be sore tomorrow.

Slowly, she got to her feet and surveyed her surroundings. Her luggage sat untouched within easy walking distance, and the locomotive was chugging away in the opposite direction. In stunned and exhilarated disbelief, she watched it recede into the distance. She, Christine Daaé, had just  _leapt from a moving train._

She was startled by the sound of hoarse laughter nearby. It bubbled up around her, building in both volume and near-crazed amusement, until it seemed that it might never stop.

And then she realized: it was hers.


	21. Palermo

When she realized that her voice had returned, the first thing that Christine did was sing.

Of course, "singing" was a generous term for what emerged from her larynx: a single, rasping note held for four beats before it crackled and dissolved. But it was enough; she just needed to know that there was even the slightest possibility of her carrying a tune ever again.

That was all it took to break her.

A lone cry escaped her lips. She tried to hold it back, but the crack in her composure had weakened her defenses, and emotion surged at her throat until the dam broke. She sobbed real sobs now, with wails and hiccups and all of the blubbering sounds that she had never thought she would miss. They doubled her over and she sank to her knees, hands resting on her thighs as her tears blurred the countryside to a yellow-green fog.

She could not even say why she was crying. Certainly she was relieved by the return of her voice, but this response seemed to come from someplace deeper. Perhaps it was that she missed Erik already, while still being furious with him. Perhaps it was that she was terrified for the both of them when she thought of what lay ahead.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that she had finally felt whole again for one glorious moment—and it had been  _before_  she heard her own laughter.

When the tears finally dissipated and she stood to make the trek back to Naples, she was smiling.

The return of her voice presented a new problem, however: it did not match her appearance. She briefly entertained the idea of pretending to be a mute, just so that she could keep her disguise as a boy, which felt safer. But it would be much easier, she reasoned, to charter passage to Palermo if she could speak.

As soon as she could, she ducked into a thick copse of trees to change. Her work skirt and petticoats, with a simple blouse, would best fit in here. Bustles did not seem to be in fashion, which lessened the blow of surrendering her more comfortable trousers. Her shoes stayed in place; they had served her well in the course of her travels, with the supple leather enveloping her feet like a second skin. Once she had tied a kerchief around her head, she moved on.

She was not terribly far out of the city, but the walk took half an hour. She followed the railroad tracks, and she practiced her Italian on the way—largely to warm up her voice, which had been rendered hoarse by the months of inactivity. She did not even know how to begin bartering for passage in the language; instead, she planned to ask around until she found someone who spoke French, and then hope for the best.

At the outskirts of the city, Christine patronized the first water-seller she could find, and once she had drunk her fill, she hired a carriage to take her to the docks.

The Port of Naples was an intimidating maze of docks and shipyards, its moored vessels ranging from rickety wooden fishing boats to massive steam-powered cargo ships and ocean liners. The air was thick with the smell of fish and brine. It was much busier than it had been on her evening visit with Erik two days prior, and she could not help but feel as though she was underfoot when she slipped in among the bustle of activity. At the very least, she was certain that the little Swedish girl with her skirts and luggage stood out among the tan and wiry dock workers who milled about with their soiled shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. She prayed that Erik was not nearby.

Finding someone who spoke French proved to be awkward and tedious. Most of the men she found had likely never left Italy in their lives; they shied away from eye contact and met her with apologies and shaking heads. Some ignored her completely. After so many rejections, her eyes began to water in frustration. Had she truly come this far only to be waylaid by a language barrier?

Still, she kept asking as she tried to formulate another plan. And, then, miraculously, a man she addressed held out a palm to still her as he called out to someone else. Across the way, a bearded man with salt-and-pepper hair pivoted to face them. He was just as tall as Erik but brawnier, and he had a heavy rope coiled around one shoulder. She was unnerved by the irritation that was plain in his face, but his expression softened when he recognized the Italian who had begun to address him. She was placated by the exchange as well, because despite the rope-carrier's rough-hewn look, she was almost certain that the Italian had addressed him as  _capitano._

"A Frenchman, eh?" the man now asked with a grin, having made his way over. The Italian man replied and pointed to her, and then the  _capitano's_  smile faltered. "Ah. Can I help you, mademoiselle?"

She swallowed as the other man disappeared from her side. "Yes, monsieur. I am looking to charter passage to Palermo as soon as possible, but I do not speak the language and could use assistance. Money and accommodations are no object."

He frowned. "The passenger boat to Palermo leaves at five, from the  _Porto Grande_. Keep to this path for another few minutes, and you will see the signs."

He was off before she could respond, and she tore after him. "Monsieur! Please wait!" Her still-rasping voice did not reach the volume she had intended, but when she caught up and tugged at his sleeve, he gave her his full, albeit irritated, attention. "I must depart as soon as possible," she said, "and five o'clock is so long from now. Is there no other option?"

He shrugged. "I know of nothing but cargo ships."

She felt her desperation surfacing again, but this time she let it. If she had to use her femininity to manipulate, then so be it. She could play the part of damsel in distress. Her reply, when it came, was little more than a whisper, delivered with wide, sad eyes that looked up at him through fluttering lashes. "Please help me find something, monsieur. I have nowhere else to turn."

He was rendered instantly uncomfortable. His eyes darted around, looking at anything but her face, and he forced an exasperated puff of air through his nose. "I do captain a small cargo ship that is bound for Palermo," he said, "but it would hardly be comfortable for a lady such as yourself."

She beamed at him. "I shall manage."

"It is an overnight voyage, with only one bunkroom in the cabins, and I cannot ask my crew to sacrifice their shifts there."

"Then I shall make do with whatever space I am offered." She was still smiling, and it seemed to take him aback.

"We do not depart until three o'clock," he added. "Will that be early enough for you?"

She nodded alongside an internal prayer that his vessel would outpace the passenger boat, and he sighed and shifted the rope to his opposite shoulder. "Come along, then," he said, and she followed him to his steamer.

He introduced himself as Luc Regnier, a longtime sailor and captain of smaller merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. He had operated out of Marseille until his wife died, he said, after which he had relocated to Naples. Presently, he and his crew of six were preparing to transport a shipment of Neapolitan wines to Palermo for one merchant and, from there, take on a shipment of cotton cloth for another. "Do you suppose that they would notice if a bottle or two went missing en route?" he asked her with a wink as they toured the boat.

He showed Christine where on deck she could sit to watch the activity in the bay, and he took her below deck to the crude plank-table and benches that served as what he called "the mess" in case she wanted to step out of the sun.

She was happy to take in the scene; it provided a much-needed distraction from the anxiety that had begun to burn a hole through her insides. When the vessel finally embarked, she was treated to a breathtaking panorama of the receding shoreline and an even better view of Vesuvius off the port side. Once the ship traversed the waters between the outward-curving mainland and the small island of Capri, the entirety of the open sea lay before them. It left her awestruck.

She spent the remainder of the day alternating between the deck, where she watched for seabirds and passing ships, and the mess, so that she might escape sun exposure that was far more brutal than what she was used to.

Eventually, she joined the captain and a few of the crew for a late supper at the makeshift dining table. There was wine; she hoped that it had not been pilfered from the cargo, but she drank it regardless, and it emboldened her.

"Captain," she addressed him at the end of the meal, "do you know anything of the mafia?"

All movement stopped. Three wide-eyed crew members glanced from her to their captain, who gave them a slight nod and murmured something in Italian. They dispersed quickly, and he turned to her. "You frightened them," he said with a wan smile and a wink. "But you must know: anyone who speaks of the mafia outright is suspected of being an informant and a threat. Either invites swift retribution."

"I understand," she replied, "but since we are in confidence…" She trailed off, suddenly unsure of what she was asking.

"I am not sure what has prompted such a keen interest on the subject, but I would advise you to steer clear." Captain Regnier stared down at the table and rubbed at his beard. "Ah, but what can I say? It is a risk to dock in the Palermo harbor; I have found myself the victim of cargo theft several times, and I have since caved and bought myself protection. I am fully aware that the source of the protection and the source of the theft are one and the same, but they own this city, and I must make a living."

"I understand," she said, and he looked up at her now.

"Does this have to do with the matter that requires such urgency on your part? You need not tell me, of course, but perhaps I can help."

"I must find a family I have never met," she confessed, "who may have mafia ties, and persuade them not to kill someone I care about." She saw his eyebrows lift but pressed on. "Truthfully, I do not even know where to begin. They have—had—a relative of some renown, and I can only hope that someone will recognize the name enough to point me in the right direction."

The captain, looking vexed, stroked his beard again. "Would my attempts to talk you out of this have any effect?" She shook her head; he sighed and rose from his seat. "Rinaldo is a Palermo native and would be familiar with many of the better-known families. Wait here; I will fetch him."

She sat in wait and tried not to close her eyes, drowsy as she was from the earlier sun and the wine. When the captain returned, it was with a lanky young crew member who took her in with brown eyes so wide and nervous that she thought he might frighten and scamper away, like a skittish deer. "I told him that you are looking for the family of...what is his name?"

"Ubaldo Piangi," she offered, and Rinaldo's face paled. He looked from Christine to the captain as though debating whether to speak or run, and then he burst into a string of frantic Italian. She could only wait for him to finish.

Finally, the captain turned to her, and his face was grave. "He says that the whole city mourned the loss of this man. Signor Piangi's father is long deceased, and his mother likely resides with her brother, Pietro Vitale." There was a pregnant pause. "Rinaldo believes that he is a  _capo_."

He said this with such gravity that Christine was embarrassed for not understanding. Her ignorance must have been evident, because he explained, "That means he is in a position of some power, and commands a group of lower-ranking  _mafiosi_. He reports directly to the head of the local mafia unit."

She nodded slowly. "That would...make sense."

"Reconsidering?"

"No." She felt foolish, and she looked down at her hands. "I must speak with Signora Piangi, at the very least."

Captain Regnier turned to the boy for another brief exchange. "Rinaldo will ask around when we reach port," he told her next. "He is certain that he can obtain a street address."

She was so grateful that she could have cried, but she was simply too exhausted. "Oh, thank you both so much," she said, and she turned to Rinaldo to echo her thanks in Italian. He offered a wan smile, but he still looked as though he might startle at any moment.

The captain dismissed the boy and motioned for Christine to follow him. "You must be tired, mademoiselle. Please, take my cabin for the night, and I will bunk with the crew as needed." He would not hear her protests, and she eventually found herself with the privacy of her own room and a bed far more comfortable than whatever sleeping arrangement she could have conceived of for the night.

Perhaps they should have surprised her, these acts of kindness from near-strangers that had dotted her journey so far, but she had grown accustomed to them in the course of her previous travels. Her father had circulated that compassion in kind, and thus she had never known anything but a general sense of comfort and good will when it came to the whole of humanity.

She thought of Erik then. How different might her life have been, had she been met with fear and revulsion at every turn?

It was odd, the way she craved his presence now. At the start of their journey from Paris, she had taken comfort from his protection, had appreciated him for his sharp mind and quick reflexes and breadth of knowledge. His mannerisms had captivated her, too: the swiftness of his stride, the ripple of his cloak, the solemn gaze framed by contrasting hat and mask. Yet, all of these things had intimidated her as well. She had deferred to him in most matters.

At this moment, however, she missed the company and touch of Erik the man, not Erik the phantom. She longed to feel his skin against hers, stripped of its shadowy facade, with his mismatched eyes gazing at her from a face that was so uniquely his, as he tapped out melodies on her bare hip and spoke to her of music so passionately that she could almost forget the loss of her singing voice.

But he did not intimidate her—not anymore. She was no longer that little sparrow peeking out from beneath his dark-feathered wing. No, she would fly at his side.

There were still parts of him that unnerved her, certainly, but she was not cowed by them. She would continue to challenge them as long as was necessary.

It had been a week since she had first pulled him into her bed for comfort, and even less time since she had first gone to his. Yet it seemed as though they had always shared that space, such that she now felt cold and exposed without his long frame pressed to hers. She curled in on herself and tried to imagine him into being until she was finally able to fall asleep.

* * *

Christine awoke to a loud knock on the cabin door. "We're approaching the bay," came the muffled voice of Captain Regnier, and she scrambled to get herself ready.

On deck, she nearly did a double-take at the scene before her. She had often wondered why so many people would choose to remain on an island suffocating under the weight of its own violence and corruption; now, it was understandable. The morning sun danced on the blue-green waters of the bay and lit a wide cluster of buildings the same color as the sand that lined the shore. The city was banded by thick groves of trees—citrus and olive, the captain told her—and beyond those, the terrain swelled into sweeping hills and finally mountains. It was a land of vibrant, earthen riches that were fit for a mind-kingdom.

It was still some time before they docked, which gave a wide berth to the fresh anxiety now surging through her body. She maintained a white-knuckled grip on her carpet bag while Rinaldo sprinted off to question some acquaintances, and when he returned with the exact location of Pietro Vitale's residence, she did not think that her heart could possibly beat any faster.

"We do not take on our next cargo until tomorrow morning," the captain told her as she stepped from the gangplank onto the dock. "Should you find yourself in need of return passage before noon, you are always welcome back." There was a weariness in his grey eyes to suggest that he did not expect to see her again, and for perhaps the first time on her journey she realized just how cavalier her whole approach had been.

She considered this as she got into the cab that bore her to the Vitale residence. Perhaps there was some component of naïveté involved, but at this point her mind's refusal to think things through could only be a mode of self-preservation. She had come so far and lost so much these past few weeks; how could she possibly turn back now?

Daylight was brighter here somehow. Her pale irises could not adjust, and she had to squint at the soft peach facade of her destination: a three-story home, generous but not ostentatious in size, made of stone and stucco with iron rails around each window. It seemed, based on her short time on the island, to be a typical Sicilian residence.  _What else did you expect?_ she chastised herself, but still she was relieved.

She rang the bell and was greeted by a stout and sullen woman in an apron who muttered something that Christine did not understand. In response, she forced a smile and asked for Signora Piangi.

The woman's eyes narrowed, and she shut the door in Christine's face.

Stunned, Christine could only blink at the heavy slab of wood. Clearly she was not welcome, and she could not begin to reason why. She was not even certain that the woman—household staff, she guessed—had understood her. She waited, listening for any telltale signs of activity, until she gave up and reached for the bell pull once more.

The door swung open before she caught hold, and this time a man stood at the threshold. He had dark hair and a mustache, both graying at the edges, and his stocky form was decked in a plain but well-kept brown suit. Something about the set of his bushy eyebrows and the slope of his prominent nose reminded her of an angry bear. "You must be the Frenchwoman who is asking after my sister," he said, and her heart skipped several beats.

She was not sure what she had expected of a  _capo_ , but it was not this. He was intimidating, certainly, but he still looked as though he could be someone's father or uncle—and he likely was—rather than the sinister villain whom she had conjured up in her mind. His French was accented but otherwise excellent, and he came off as well-educated. "Signor Vitale?" she confirmed, and he nodded.

"Maria does not receive visitors, so you might understand my suspicion when I ask for your name and intention."

She had to remind herself to breathe before she could speak. "My name is Christine Daaé," she said, "and I have traveled from Paris to speak with her."

His eyes raked over her form, not betraying one scrap of emotion, and then he opened the door wider. "Why don't you join me in my study, Miss Daaé?"

The house was shaded and airy, cooled by a cross-breeze from open windows and smelling of orange and saffron. Through an open door near the sitting-room she could see an enclosed outdoor courtyard that was furnished with paving-stones and dark-green palms.

In the study, he gestured to the open chair opposite his desk. They both sat to face each other in what she realized was an echo of her earlier conversations with Alessandro. She would not have considered herself an assertive person by any means, but all evidence suggested the contrary.

"I must confess," said Signor Vitale, "that we had all but given up on finding your masked companion after our most recent efforts, and yet here you are! It is most fortuitous, such that I cannot comprehend why you would come to us so willingly."

"As I said, I had hoped to speak to Signora Piangi about matters concerning her late son. But I have a request of you as well, concerning our mutual acquaintance, so I might as well voice it now."

"A request of  _me_? Ah, Miss Daaé, you have no idea what you walking into here."

"I have  _every_  idea what I am walking into," she corrected him, though her voice quavered. "In fact, I understand that you and your subordinates consider yourselves men of honor, and therefore I expect that you will uphold that honor when I argue that this man's fate ought to rest in  _my_  hands."

He stared at her for several seconds, and then he erupted into derisive laughter. "Perhaps I have given you too little credit," he said. "Regardless, the honor you speak of comes in the form of loyalty to our own, and no one else. Still, I would very much like to hear why  _you_  should decide the fate of the man who killed my nephew."

How grateful Christine was to have already rehearsed the argument in her head. The pressure she felt in that moment was almost unbearable, with Erik's life perhaps entirely contingent on her delivery. Her hands trembled.

"To begin," she said, "I have been victimized by your men more times than I would care to count, despite my innocence in this matter." He said nothing, but she could tell that she had his attention. "They accosted me in my flat, such that I was forced to flee and live out of a hotel. They kidnapped me from my place of employment and held me prisoner in a cellar for three days before I was rescued. And while I was imprisoned"—she held up her left hand, where the littlest finger remained taped to its neighbor—"one man intentionally broke my finger." She had grown used to the arrangement in the two weeks since the injury and could easily keep pressure off of it, but it was not healed.

This summary of transgressions stoked her dormant anger, and with it rose her confidence. "He also," she said, "cut off my hair to use as bait." She watched his eyes darken as she untied her kerchief to reveal what had become of her brown locks. "I have had to go on the run so as to avoid being kidnapped again, and I was very nearly strangled to death in Rome. So I would like to know, signor, how you intend to make up for the torture and debasement of an innocent woman."

He at least had the decency to show some remorse. "I called for your abduction, yes," he conceded. "My orders were to leave you unharmed. Anything to the contrary was done against my instruction, for which I apologize. Your attacker in Rome simply did not recognize you for who you were, but I cannot offer any excuses for the rest of your ill treatment.

"If it is recompense that you desire," he went on, "then we can work out some amount of financial compensation. But do not ask me to forego my right to retribution; it is out of the question. I have waited  _months_  to put a bullet in this man's head for what he has done to my family."

Oh, how she struggled to keep her composure in the wake of such condemning words. Her voice was small but insistent as she replied, "I have just as much right to retribution as you, if not more so."

His bristly eyebrows tented, and he crossed his arms. "Ah, do tell, signorina."

"He manipulated me, stalked me, abducted me and nearly killed my fiancé," she snapped. "Since then, I have known nothing but misery as a result." She swallowed a sob and continued, more quietly now. "He upended my life, signor, and as the sole party at hand who was  _directly_  wronged by the man in question, I am laying claim to what is mine." Her voice had shed the last of its timidity, and she did not break eye contact as he stared her down in the moments following.

They were interrupted as the door to the study swung open and another man barged in, this one similarly dressed and mustachioed but taller. He had already launched into rapid Italian before he noticed her presence, at which point he halted. "You," he said, wide eyes scanning her as though she was a spectre. "I saw you sing, the night Ubaldo was killed."

"My cousin, Antonio," said Signor Vitale, and he trained his eyes on the man. "You were saying?"

Antonio cast a look of uncertainty in her direction, and then he continued in his native tongue, his cadence so quick that she could scarcely catch a word. There was a brief exchange between the two men, and then Antonio saw himself out while Signor Vitale withdrew from his pocket a key that he used to unlock his center desk drawer.

"I am told that there is a masked man asking after the Piangi family," he told Christine. Her heart pounded as she watched him withdraw a revolver from the open drawer and load six cartridges, one by one, into the cylinder. "Perhaps you would like to join us when we receive him in the courtyard." He stood and, without waiting for a response, strode out of the room with the gun in hand. She had no choice but to follow.

He returned to the sitting-room that they had passed on their way in, but now a squat and dark-haired woman occupied one of the armchairs. Age had not been terribly kind to her face, which sagged under the weight of wrinkles and sunspots, but her dark eyes looked to her brother with what Christine could only describe as a childish innocence. It was clear from that one instant that this woman had not had any hand in the family's manhunt.

Signor Vitale addressed her in Italian, and what he said next must have been solely for Christine's benefit, for she knew that the other woman did not understand French: "Come, Maria, and let us have a word with the man who murdered your son."


	22. Women of Honor

"Come, Maria, and let us have a word with the man who murdered your son."

Pietro Vitale's words hung heavy in what was an otherwise sunny space. His sister had already paled in response to whatever he had said to her in Italian, and only then did she seem to notice Christine's presence. She pointed to her with a trembling hand and looked to her brother in question, but he had already pushed past her and out into the courtyard.

" _Buongiorno_ , signora," said Christine quietly, and then she darted after the  _capo_  without the slightest idea as to how she could stop him.

She hesitated just inside the doorway to the courtyard, suddenly afraid to show herself. She squeezed her eyes shut as Signor Vitale addressed his visitor. "After months of evading justice," he bellowed, "you have the nerve to turn up in  _my_  home."

"Ah, but better late than never, signor. Surely that earns me some of your favor?"

Christine winced at Erik's dry humor. Was he  _trying_  to antagonize the mafiosi?

He might be, she realized, if he thought that it would accelerate the process. He did not expect to win them over; he did not expect to leave their home alive. She had to stop him from uttering something disastrous, and so she swallowed her anxiety and slipped outside to stand behind the two Sicilian men.

Erik stood out here more than anywhere else, his jet-black figure like an inkspot against the sun-bleached backdrop. He held his hat to his chest but was otherwise impeccable, as though he had turned up to take in an opera. His composure was far too cool for a man staring down the barrel of cousin Antonio's drawn pistol.

That was, until he saw her.

With guns at the ready, Signor Vitale and his cousin moved to one side of the courtyard opposite Erik, giving themselves a wider berth. The shift left her standing alone at the courtyard entrance, off to his side, and it took two glances in her direction to bring about his delayed reaction.

His lips separated in a motion of uneasy shock. She knew the expression that clouded his face in the seconds following, for it was the same one she had seen after removing his hood on stage, and she would never forget it: the look of a man whose soul had just been crushed under the weight of his own despair.

_I am fine_ , she signed discreetly, though she suspected that it would be of little comfort.

Signor Vitale was watching their strained interaction, and she saw it in his face the moment realization struck him. "You feel no remorse," he said to Erik. "You came here so that we might spare her."

"Can my motivation not be both?" Erik had quickly salvaged his composure, but there was unease in his stance; her presence had rattled him. "But do what you will, signor; I only ask that you first release Mademoiselle Daaé, unharmed."

Vitale smirked. "Ah, but she came to us quite willingly. It seems that we are not the only ones invested in your demise."

The mismatched eyes flicked to her again, their pain somehow more pronounced against an otherwise impassive face. "Be that as it may, I would like your word that she shall remain safe."

"You are in no position to request any favors, signor." In a few quick strides, Vitale had closed the distance between the two men. He circled behind Erik and lashed out with a swift sweep of his leg.

The impact made Erik's legs buckle, and he fell to his knees without protest. A small gasp escaped Christine's lips. She knew that she ought to say something, but her breath and voice seemed to stick to the insides of her chest.

"I cared for that boy like he was my own," Vitale growled. He slammed his heel into Erik's side, sending him sprawling to the ground with a pained grunt. Black hat fell to the wayside as those beautiful hands splayed and extended to break the fall. " _I_  paid to get him off of this godforsaken island.  _I_ paid for his tuition in Rome. He had a gift, to be sure, but he worked hard and fought against all odds to end up where he did. But you…" Erik was pushing himself back onto his knees, and Piangi's uncle leaned forward to spit at him with distaste. "You are a coward unfit to have shared the same stage."

Erik kept his eyes trained on the ground and produced a feeble smile. "I cannot say that I disagree with you there, signor."

"You might at least have the decency to show your face." Without hesitation, Signor Vitale reached out and yanked off the mask.

He recoiled instantly. Farther away, Antonio muttered, " _Gesù Cristo_."

Erik knelt with cool resignation, the ice-blue eye staring down his adversary from beneath a puckered and hairless brow ridge. He bore with solemn acceptance that gnarled and cadaverous flesh, marred as it was by cruel gouges and crooked lips whose blighted swells worked against him with every spoken word. It was with a sinking heart that Christine realized he was too close to death to feel shame.

But then he looked to her, and when she stared back, the affection that quietly bound them was so palpable and so profound that she started to think that maybe, just maybe, his indifference was because of her. How many times had she gazed upon that face without a trace of revulsion? How many times had she charted its anemic contours with brushes of lip and finger and palm?

She loved his face.  _She loved his face!,_  and he had seen it in her eyes and felt it in her touch, and it was her love that emboldened him now because hers was the only sentiment that mattered to him anymore. Had there not been men with guns present, she would have thrown herself to her knees before him to hold that face between her palms and steal a fervent kiss.

" _Mio Dio_ ," murmured a soft voice behind her, and she turned her head to find Maria Piangi's small and rotund frame hovering in the doorway to the courtyard, her immense brown eyes taking in the scene. Any reasonable person would have expected her shock to stem from Erik's presence, as Christine did, but then she strode across the courtyard and began to pummel her brother's arm with closed fists. A torrent of angry Italian spewed out of her lungs.

So the woman could speak after all. Was this outburst the exception or the norm? Based on Signor Vitale's gaping mouth as he feebly fended off his sister's attack, Christine guessed the former: another woman robbed of her will to speak in the wake of the Phantom's fatal selfishness.

Erik's voice cut in on her thoughts, curling softly around her ears despite his distance from her and the volume of the confrontation nearby. "Signora Piangi, I presume, says that this man promised her he would leave Ubaldo out of the family business," he translated for her. He was on his feet again, brushing the dust off his jacket. "She has accused him of going back on that promise."

The dispute began to fizzle, with Maria's ire giving way to a different form of distress as her hands and lips began to tremble. Her two relatives were quick to flank her on either side and lead her to a stone bench, where they sat her down and patted her hands as they murmured reassurances. Christine could not help but feel intrusive.

She watched Signor Vitale with interest as he withdrew from his sister and, frowning, rubbed at the dark, burgeoning stubble along his jawline. His gaze flicked from Maria to Erik to Christine. Then, finally, he walked over to her. "My sister reminds me that my nephew was not associated with  _Cosa Nostra_ , and therefore she insists that I should not be pursuing vengeance as doggedly as I have." He reached for Christine's hand and pressed the revolver into it. "I must admit, I now relish the thought of his demise at the hands of the woman he is so obviously infatuated with."

She stared down at the weapon and then back up to the man's face, certain that her shock and discomfort were plain as day. He skewered her with a look. "This is what you wanted, is it not? Rest assured, however, that if you do not shoot him, I will." He called out to his cousin, and Antonio produced a second pistol from his waistband. Both armed and alert, they would ensure that she did not do anything drastic.

She swallowed and looked to Erik, whose wide and disconcerted eyes indicated that he had not foreseen this turn of events.

Signor Vitale gestured to his sister with an instruction for her to follow him out of the courtyard, but she refused. She looked up to Antonio as she spoke, and Christine caught enough to gather that she wanted him to translate. She wanted to be apprised of what was happening. She  _deserved_  to be apprised of what was happening.

"May I speak with her first?" Christine asked.

But she did not see or hear the response, distracted as she was by the movement off to her side: Erik's mouth falling open, his hand lifting to rest on his breastbone. "Oh, Christine," he whispered.

"Erik." Her voice shook now. It was the first time she had ever spoken his name.

He dropped to his knees. He opened and closed his mouth several times, never once managing to produce sound, and with his fingers splayed as they were against his ribcage, it seemed as though he struggled to breathe. "Your voice," he managed to rasp. "When did it return?"

"Yesterday, after I jumped from the train that you put me on." She took immense satisfaction from the way his irises flared with fierce surprise. "I have more to say to you, but it must wait. You are not the only reason I have come here." She moved to kneel beside the stone bench, at Maria's side, and she glanced up at Antonio to ask, "Will you translate?" He nodded warily.

Christine took Signora Piangi's warm and weathered hands in hers, but before she could speak, the other woman smiled and murmured something to her.

"She says that she remembers you," Antonio said, "and that you have a beautiful voice, and she is glad to see you are well."

Tears pricked Christine's eyes as she smiled and replied, "Thank you, signora."

She gathered her thoughts; they took her back nine months, to a place where she did not wish to return. "Perhaps it is too late for my words to be of any comfort, but I have wanted to tell you how devastated I was to learn of your son's passing. He was very talented, and well-respected, and he…" Maria's eyes watered while a messy teardrop slid down Christine's cheek, and it would have been impossible to say which was cause and which was effect. "He was only ever nice to me, even when he had cause not to be."

She sniffled and wiped at her face before glancing up to the head of the household. "Signor Vitale, I am also sorry for your loss."

She reached into her satchel and withdrew two folded letters that she pressed into Signora Piangi's hands. "It may be an empty gesture," she said, "but I thought that I would offer a way in which to honor his memory, and your brother's tale seems to make it even more fitting. I have taken the first steps to establish an annual scholarship in Ubaldo's name."

She waited for Antonio to translate, then watched Maria look to her cousin in surprise, as though to confirm what she had just heard.

"We can discuss the specifics," Christine continued, "but my thought was to have you or the family as a whole select one recipient each year to study in Rome. It can be for music, or—or whatever you would like. It would offer other young people the opportunity that your son was so lucky to have."

She opened the first of the two missives, which bore Meg's narrow handwriting and was written in careful Italian. "This letter is from my friend Meg—that is, Signora Marchesi. She was in the ballet and the chorus at the Populaire, and she now resides in Rome with her husband, who owns several hotels. She has volunteered to coordinate travel and enrollment for each student, and to arrange for their room and board.

"And this one"—she unfolded the second paper—"is a letter of intention from a patron of the Opera, the Vicomte de Chagny, to fund up to four years of study for each of the first three scholarship recipients. Our hope is to find additional benefactors to step in after those initial three years, and he has promised to help solicit them."

Christine rose to her feet, leaving the letters in Signora Piangi's custody and well aware that every individual in the courtyard was gawking at her. For once, she could not read the emotions on Erik's face.

"May I also address Signora Piangi?" he asked the two men. They exchanged glances. Signor Vitale nodded, and the two of them leveled their pistols in warning as he came to tower over the diminutive woman, who was looking quite overwhelmed in that moment. When he sank down to one knee before her, she turned her face aside, willing to listen but not daring to look.

"As always, Mademoiselle Daae outshines everyone with her thoughtfulness and puts my very existence to shame." He spoke in French—for her own benefit, Christine assumed. Antonio continued to translate quietly. "I would tell you that I was not in my right mind, signora, when I committed that most brutal of sins. But there is no excuse for what I did then, nor what I did after, which was to strip the victims of their humanity in my memory."

Erik smiled without mirth. "It is easier to detach from the nameless and faceless, is it not? They become relics of a distant time, frozen in a display for objective study." He glanced at Christine, and she wondered whether he was thinking of Pompeii. "But the more compassionate among us are able to imagine their stories and faces, their hopes and dreams. They are the ones who blur the lines between history and memory."

He pulled himself to his feet, his movements slow and weary. "I am not one of those people, signora, but this is the first time that I have ever aspired to be one. I am truly sorry for my actions, and though I came here intending to throw myself at your family's mercy, I will remember your son as he was in life for my remaining moments on this earth, few as they may be."

Here he backed away from the others as he turned toward Christine, that ravaged face somehow softened by his sorrow. "But neither did I expect my fate to rest in the hands of the only soul in this world whom I have ever loved." He gestured toward the gun. "What is this about, Christine?"

"Yes," growled Signor Vitale, "speak your piece and get on with it. Were it not for you, we would have tossed his body into the bay already."

Her stomach churned. The weapon felt strange and leaden in her hands. She recalled Erik's passionate criticism of gun use, and she swallowed her guilt.

Months of disuse had made her voice hoarse and her throat raw, so she spoke with a quiet firmness. "I made the case to Signor Piangi's uncle that I have more right to retribution than he does."

Her candor stunned Erik into speechlessness. There was a hushed murmur off to one side as Antonio translated her words for Signora Piangi.

"You manipulated me from the beginning," she said. "You watched me in what should have been private moments, and you exploited my grief and my unquestioning obedience. You terrorized my employers and my fellow performers, all in my name, which I did not request or desire." Her eyes clouded with angry tears as she enumerated his transgressions, and her grip tightened around the base of the gun. Erik looked on in increasing horror.

"You sent a chandelier crashing to my feet. You forced an entire opera company to perform your work under duress. You not only dismissed my engagement but also  _took my ring_. You abducted me in order to force me into marriage, and you nearly killed my fiancé. And yes, you did let me go in the end and for that I am grateful, but the fact remains that you  _still_  view me as some _thing_  to possess and not some _one_  to respect."

It was becoming harder to breathe. Her hands trembled, and so did his. He gave a meek shake of his head, as if to protest her words, but she did not relent. "You  _drugged_ me only two nights ago!" she cried. "You let me make decisions when it suits you, and you decide for me when it does not. You are abrasive and obstinate and so arrogantly  _selfish_ , and I"—she choked on a sob, and her bottom lip trembled—"I forgive you."

Erik gaped at her, his outward breaths rasping and uneven, and when his tears caught the sunlight she could see how they flowed freely down his face, lodging themselves into the uneven furrows of skin until the malformed half of his face began to glisten. "What did you say?" he whispered: a question, but not a question.

Christine's hands fell limp to her sides, the gun loose within her grasp. "I forgive you. For all of it. Because I must, and because I believe that you can do better."

His resulting laughter was muted and brusque. "Would that I could have that chance," he said, nodding toward the gun.

"Oh, Erik." She drew nearer to him, almost whispering now. "I cannot shoot you, but neither can I hand this weapon over to someone who will." She knew how desperate she must look and sound, and thus her remaining thought went unspoken:  _Tell me what to do._

His tender reply fell so delicately on her ears that she knew it was meant for her only. "Hand me the gun, and I shall take care of it." His eyes had softened, but they still managed to arrest her gaze. "There will be no blood on your hands this time, my dearest angel, and no more on mine save my own."

The other men grew suspicious at the same time she did, leveling their pistols at Erik's head. "Touch that revolver," Signor Vitale said, "and you will be dead before you can take aim."

Ah, but they must think he intended to shoot at them. She knew that was not the case, and in a moment of weak conscience she could not decide which scenario was worse.

"Pay him no mind," Erik murmured. "I can be quick. It will be over the second that you release your grip."

Christine shook her head in such terrified protest that it was a wonder her neck did not snap. "No," she said. "I love you. I shall not—"

Abruptly, he put up a hand to stop her. "Say it again," he whispered. His eyes bore into hers as though the fate of the world hinged on her willingness to repeat the words, and she realized that he had never before heard her speak them out loud.

She said it louder this time, so that everyone was sure to hear: "I love you."

The courtyard went silent, save for a soft breeze that rustled the palm fronds. It was some time before Antonio broke the silence with his quiet translation, and she understood exactly what he had said this time:  _She loves him, Maria_.

Erik simply nodded. "Then," he said, "would it be too much to request one final kiss?"

Vitale, looking exasperated, kept his weapon at the ready. "Any sudden movements, and I shoot. But  _mio Dio_ , just end it already! You waste my time, signor, when it has been firmly established that you are to leave this house a dead man." He looked to Christine. "And you, signorina, must decide who delivers your lover's fate."

Oh, this was all so familiar. Her heart beat so fast that it seemed to buzz in her chest. Erik drew closer, but she could not move, could not speak, could only look up at him as he tilted his head to kiss her. In the absence of any other solution, she surrendered to the moment and let her eyes close.

His lips were dry and cracked from the sun, but after a few tender brushes against the heat of her mouth, they softened. She longed to slant her mouth against those rough swells until she and Erik ascended to another plane entirely, never to see Paris or Rome or Palermo again.

His movements were languid and reverent, and they drank down her sorrows and protests. This was very much a farewell kiss.

She felt the easy slide of his fingers down the arm that held the gun. His touch was soft and reassuring; in it, she could feel how much he loved her.  _Let me_ , it said, and she found her grip on the weapon relaxing even as her mind protested and her other hand clenched the lapel of his jacket. Yet again, he had managed to seduce her with both voice and touch so that she might go along with the path that he had already chosen for her.

Her tears mingled with the sounds of hammers cocking and men barking warnings behind her. It felt wholly unfair that the two of them should have come so far only for Erik to meet this end, and only for her to find herself in another tug-of-war between adversaries.

But they had survived the last one. How had they survived it? She kissed him more fervently as her mind worked at triple speed. His hand had reached her wrist, but it faltered now at her sudden onslaught of affection.

She remembered now: she had broken free of the rope altogether.

She had chosen a solution of her own design, because she could see from angles that they could not, ones that were rooted in empathy and humanity and balance.

Christine pulled away from Erik's face. "Let go," she whispered. He froze, but he did not move his hand from hers. "Please, love.  _Trust me_."

It was perhaps a foolish request; the last time she had begged him to have faith in her, he had rendered her unconscious and overridden her plans. But now, with his death an impending certainty, what did he have to lose?

He gave her wrist a desperate squeeze, and then he released it.

She whirled around, her body still positioned in front of Erik's, and raised her hands in submission. "I defer to Signora Piangi," she announced.

Signor Vitale glared at her over the barrel of his gun. "She has no part in this," he snapped.

"But when you consider it, signor, she really ought to." Christine looked to the other woman and raised her voice. "Signora Piangi, how would you have us uphold your son's honor?" There was no mistaking that she had addressed Maria, and the latter tugged at Antonio's sleeve until he gave her a begrudging explanation. Afterward, she sat with wide eyes and pursed lips, turning the letters from Meg and Raoul over in her hands. And then she spoke.

Behind Christine, Erik provided a quiet translation. "She says that she wishes for the memory of her son to be associated with life and music, and not with death."

The women's eyes met. One pair was a churning-sea blue, awash with revived youth and promise; the other was a deep coffee-brown, dulled with age and grief. Both were glassy from tears, and both recognized in the other a shared suffering, and from that suffering, a burgeoning strength that no one else in the courtyard could understand.

Christine smiled and nodded. "That is what I wish for, too, signora."

* * *

It was not the fairytale ending that she had dreamed of as a girl.

To start, her Prince Charming and the villain of her story were one and the same. He sat across from her on the carriage ride to Alessandro's estate, looking both stately and diabolical in his tailored black attire. His rigid half-mask was back in place. There was unease, however, conveyed by his tense posture and his furtive glances in her direction. He seemed to regard her with equal parts awe and fear since she had diffused the conflict with the  _mafiosi_ , and the inevitable question still lay unspoken between them:  _What now?_

They were traveling alongside a lemon grove when he broke the silence. "I have said it before, Christine, but I do not deserve you. But if you will have me, I—" He cleared his throat; she had rarely seen him so unsettled. "I will do whatever it takes to make myself worthy."

She moved to sit next to him, and she lifted one of his cool hands to sandwich it between hers. "I must confess, I had hoped that you would say that." She tried to ignore the sharp pangs of nausea that ravaged her insides; she had known, ever since a moment of startling clarity at Signor Vitale's home, what must be said and done. "You must learn to be around other people, Erik...and I cannot be one of them. Not yet."

His reaction was swift and pained. "Why?" he whispered, and in that moment he was little more than the frightened child-version of himself who must have wanted so badly for somebody just to  _choose_  to be with him.

Christine blinked back her tears. Her eyes already felt so raw and swollen that she could scarcely believe her tear ducts still functioned. "You still hold such disregard for the autonomy of others," she said, "and it seems nearly impossible that you should grow to recognize and respect that when the only person you interact with is the same one whom you would protect at all costs."

She allowed a moment for him mull this over. Then, she added, "And when you make decisions for me, Erik, I can lash out in such terrible ways. Ours has been a relationship marred by manipulation and deceit and oh, God, I am so  _tired_  of all of this poison." She lay her head against his shoulder now. "And I am just...tired."

He twined his fingers through hers and brought her knuckles to his lips. "Tired how, my sweet?"

She considered this. "Tired of dependency, I should think. I want to know myself, to know the person I can be when my happiness does not hang on you or Raoul or even my father."

"And how long do you suppose that our respective self-journeys will take us?" Erik asked. His voice was strained but hopeful, if only for her benefit.

"I hardly know," she replied, "but I have faith that they will converge again." She turned so that he could see the truth in her eyes when she added, "Delayed though it may be...I choose  _you_."

There was nothing more to be said, and so he leaned in and kissed her. She gave herself over to those comforting lips while she still could. She knew in her gut that this was the right path forward, but it did little to assuage her already aching heart.

* * *

Erik accompanied her to the docks late the following morning to see her off. When they said their farewells at the gangplank, she had already found an astonished Captain Regnier and his crew, and her carpet bag was safely stowed on board the cargo ship for its return trip to Naples.

"Is this the Christine I am to expect in the future?" Erik asked her. "A train-jumping stowaway who throws in her lot with rugged seamen?"

She smiled up at him. "And if it were?"

He raked his fingers through her hair, and then he pulled her tightly to his chest. "She sounds like she would make a fine travelling companion."

"Where will you go?" she murmured into his shirt, where she worked to commit his crisp and lovely scent to memory.

"I may, in fact, stay." When she jerked her head up to gape at him, he offered a wan smile. "I am still in a family's debt," he said. "If I must learn to be civil, as you insist, then I might as well atone at the same time."

She could not begin to express her pride for him in that moment, so she pulled him into a fierce embrace instead. Then she rummaged at the bottom of her satchel until she found it: the black-stoned ring that he had dropped on the hotel-room floor.

His eyes widened as she held it up for identification and slipped it onto her ring finger. "A gesture of faith," she explained. "I know that you consider its tale to be sordid, but I have every confidence that you will come to replace it with a fresh story."

"You may consider that a promise," came his breathless reply, and then he tossed her a line from the Swedish folk song that had woven its way through the tapestry of their relationship: " _Even if I traveled to the end of the world, my heart would call for you._ "

When the vessel left port and she stood on deck to watch that inky figure recede against the Palermo skyline, the wind whipping through her mess of close-cropped hair, Christine felt that magnetic tug at her insides all over again, and she smiled to know that fate would soon engineer a second and final reunion with her fallen angel.

She cast one last look across the rippling water, and then she turned to regale her new comrades with the voice she had found.


	23. Epilogue

Late January in Paris brought with it the worst kind of sky: one absent any color or dimension, so that it seemed to blend into the paved boulevards and the dull grey of the Seine, broken up only by the darker gloom of bare, arthritic tree limbs. There was a perpetual dampness to everything, the kind that seeped into one's bones with a chill that did not relent until spring.

Late January in Florence, however, boasted blue sky more often than not. The daytime air was crisp but not cold, and Christine had found that her favorite blue cloak, as weathered as it was, could sufficiently keep her warm most days.

Today was one such day. It was so glorious that she was compelled to stop, as she often did, on her way across the  _Ponte Vecchio_ in order to gaze out at the spectacle. The bright sun on the River Arno gave way to stunning reflections of the pale stone buildings that flanked the riverbanks, and if she looked to the east, past the sea of rust-orange terracotta roofs, she could see mountains.

When she had taken in her fill, she moved past the butcher-shops lining the bridgeway and crossed to the south bank. Her apartment was several blocks away and directly above a millinery, but her window provided a fine view of the water below and, to the north, the soaring bell tower of a prominent basilica.

She was renting the flat with Erik's money. As he had indicated, his funds were transferred to her upon her mid-November return to Meg's house in Rome. She had left the sum untouched for a while, assuming that he would lay claim to it once more after the turn of events in Palermo, and in the meantime she stayed with Meg and Alessandro as they awaited the arrival of their little one.

Baby Gabriel entered the world on Christmas Eve. He was plump and perfect, with a downy shock of dark hair like his father's. Christine helped with his care and with her friend's recovery as best she could, but she had begun to feel both restless and an imposition, and it was becoming clear that Erik did not intend to collect his finances anytime soon.

She could not have said what led her to relocate to Florence, where she did not know a soul or even the language, except that she had felt at ease in her brief stay there and had thought of it often since. She adored its sights and its rich history, both of which were steeped in art and architecture, and it somehow felt more intimate than Rome.

Both the decision to move and its actual implementation had been terrifying, she could admit. Alessandro had personally escorted her to the city, despite her protests, and helped her find a flat. But it was she who had sought out the old man in the music-shop where she had purchased her violin, she who had arranged lessons with the teacher he recommended, and she who had found a suitable tutor in the Italian language so that she might eventually understand everything that was voiced in said lessons.

It was a violin lesson that Christine returned from now, and the wooden case bearing her instrument slapped against her thigh as she hiked up the two flights of stairs to her flat. The session had been difficult, on account of the language barrier and the fact that her teacher was a stickler for proper technique, but with only four such meetings under her belt she had already noticed a small improvement in her ability. She practiced every day with diligence and enthusiasm.

Her life at present was little more than music and language and good food—oh, the cheese!—and it was wonderful. She would not let herself feel guilty for it, not when she knew that it was exactly how Erik would want her to spend his money. Besides, music and Italian lessons aside, she utilized his funds for only basic necessities, and she needed so little to maintain a comfortable existence.

Though some more coal for the stove might be a justifiable splurge, she thought as she opened the door to a residence that was nearly as brisk as the air outside. She considered leaving her gloves on but begrudgingly peeled them off when she saw that the landlord had slid her mail under the door.

It was a single letter that she plucked from the floor. It had no return address, but she recognized the handwriting immediately, for it had graced many a threatening note at the Opera Populaire. With trembling fingers, she broke and lifted the wax seal.

It was not a letter at all, she discovered, but rather a single page of music. "Sonata for piano and violin in E minor," it read, the words and notations all in Erik's hand. The sight sent a jolt of longing through her. She ran her fingertips over the title and across the first bar of the music, and then she sat down on her loveseat to study the part of the violin.

But there  _was_  no violin part—at least, not yet. The staves and bars for it were there, but each measure was marked with a rest. The violin sat in silence while the piano carried the entirety of the melody. However, there was no double bar line to signify the end of the piece; there must be more to follow.

Christine waited three agonizing days to see whether any additional pages would turn up at her doorstep, but they did not. Then she searched the one page she had for clues, but she did not uncover anything.  _Why_  would he send her an unfinished work with nothing but notations for piano? She was desperate to find out, and so she did what seemed to make sense in the moment, given that she did not have the means to contact him: she bought a piano.

It was simply carved, its elegant rosewood a soft and deep purplish-brown, but its tone was warm and clear, and it was more than adequate to suit her purposes. The day that it was painstakingly delivered to her flat, she was so determined not to disrupt the business of the millinery below that she would not let herself touch the instrument until the shop closed, as it always did, at precisely six o'clock. Then she sat down to begin the meticulous process of playing a song that was far beyond her skill level.

She played with her right hand to start, picking up only the top note of each chord to scrape together a bare-bones version of the melody. It sounded nothing like it ought to, she knew, and yet it was just enough to give her the flavor of the composition.

It seemed more of a lament than any sonata she had ever heard. There was a haunting, melancholic longing to the piece that almost made her uncomfortable, as though she was intruding on someone else's despair.

Oh, Erik.

Christine set the page aside after that. She purchased assorted new music from her now-favorite shop run by the old man, and each time the millinery shuttered for the night, she would sit at the piano and plunk away, one hand at a time, so that she might condition her fingers and sharpen her sight-reading skills.

The second page arrived a week later.

The violin came in halfway through this one. It had clearly been written for her skill level. It was timid—little more than a soft echo of the piano—but it was there, and it was lovely, and all too short. She practiced the part until she had it committed to memory.

Throughout February and into early March, the pages kept coming: usually within a handful of days of each other, sometimes a week. Once, she received two at the same time. The part of the violin increased in both volume and complexity, until it began to hold its own alongside the piano, at which point their elegant harmony was thrown into sudden and unnerving dissonance. She had yet to receive a page with any sort of resolution.

There was never a return address. Each time she received a letter adorned with Erik's handwriting, her heartbeat would quicken and she would wonder whether that particular installment was the one containing the double bar line to signify the end of the piece. She was not sure what she expected to happen when it  _was_  finished, but she could not imagine him making such an effort if it bore no significance.

In the meantime, she carried on as she had been, immersing herself in music as well as the Italian language and culture as a semi-effective means of distraction. But like a phantom limb, Erik's absence could weigh on her on any time, with an ache that was deep and unflagging. It cropped up at the piano, where her fingers would sometimes began to play  _Kristallen den Fina_  before her eyes and ears noticed. It arose within sighting distance of the riverbank where they had shared a bottle of wine. It especially arrested her in bed at night, when she was unable to control the wayward meandering of her thoughts and memories.

Diversion came in the form of an unexpected visit from Raoul, who was passing through Florence and had learned of her new residence there, as well as the return of her voice, from Alessandro. He sent her an invitation to lunch the following day. Surprised but grateful, she accepted.

"I could scarcely believe it when I learned that you had settled here alone," he told her over steaming beef consommé. She had been pleased to note the disappearance of his mustache. "I must say, though, that it seems to suit you. Have you perhaps found your home at last?"

Christine considered this. "I am not sure that I could ever consider one place my home," she offered tentatively. "I daresay that I have left a small piece of myself behind in every city where I have lived. But this feels right for the present, at the least. I am content."

"I must confess," he teased, "that I had half expected you to remain with that masked nuisance."

"He is currently on a journey of self-redemption," she replied with a wan smile. Perhaps Raoul heard the ache in her voice, for his own smile faltered and he redirected the conversation.

They lingered at the table long past the meal. Their affection for each other seemed to have cooled into a comfortable, familial fondness, and she was surprised by how relieved she was to spend time with a familiar face. From the restaurant she walked him to some of the shops and to a favorite piazza. Their pace was so leisurely that they kept each other company until near suppertime, but instead of the upscale restaurant that he suggested, she forced him to sample some of her favorite street foods.

Once the sun dipped below the river's edge on the horizon, the clouds thickened and the wind picked up; the scent of the air promised rain. The pair gradually said their goodbyes, and she allowed Raoul to hire a carriage to take her home.

"Take care, little Lotte," he said as he helped her into the waiting cab. "You have done quite well for yourself." Their eyes met as he pulled the door to a close, and it was with a knowing look that he added, "He would be proud."

As the carriage pulled away, she could not determine whether he was referring to her father or to Erik.

A cold drizzle was coming down when she reached her building, and by the time she had lit the lamps and the stove to settle in for the night, it had escalated to a downpour. That made it all the more jarring when she was startled from her book by a sharp knock on her door.

It was with some unease that she crossed the small sitting-room, until she turned the door handle and found herself staring into the contrasting irises of the dark and imposing figure that filled her doorway.

He was dressed in all of his original splendor, with the striking cloak that broadened his shoulders and the tilted black hat that threw his face into shadow. Rainwater had rendered his dark tailcoat and trousers slick with a watery sheen, and she could make out the contours of his chest through the white shirt plastered to his skin. Though his eyes were softer now, he still retained the commanding presence that made her breath catch.

Still, she did not miss how his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he took in the sight of her.

"Good evening," he said, and he hesitated. "May I come in?"

The corner of her mouth quirked back as she stood aside to allow him entry. "I have never known you to request entry to anything, let alone knock."

Erik closed the door before he palmed the crown of his hat and set it on the stand nearby. "It seems that sneaking in through unconventional means and lurking in the shadows are not, in fact, well received." He hung his cloak next.

"That did not stop you before."

"I was not listening before."

They regarded each other for a long moment. "How did you find me?" she managed to ask.

"Signora Marchesi."

"Meg willingly gave up that information?"

He averted his eyes and cleared his throat. "Ah. Well. Not exactly. I happened to spy a letter from you that was sitting out. On that note, you can expect correspondence from her that details my interest in seeing you and my contact information." He flashed her a sidelong glance. "With any luck, I will not be at that address when you receive her missive."

She was not entirely certain what he meant, but her stomach fluttered with nervous hope. "And where have you been?"

"Palermo."

"Doing what?"

"Exactly as you instructed of me," he said. "I wrote to Signora Piangi and family to express that I was in their debt and at their disposal. Her brother wanted nothing more to do with me, and she requested that I go to church. So I found one in need of an organist." She threw him a look of feigned disapproval, and he shrugged. "She did not specify what to  _do_ there. But let me tell you, Christine: there is no quicker way to observe the complexity of human nature than to play their hymns, and to overhear their prayers and confessions."

"Ah, but you have spied on people for years," she replied, her tone light. "Surely this was no different."

"No." He frowned at the floor, and his solemnity rattled her. "They put up barriers when they go into work, into the opera house. But when the barriers are lowered and their insecurities released…" He hesitated, his hands lifting to slick back the dark hair of his wig. "Everyone is haunted by something, Christine. I am afraid that my fixation on external appearance has long persuaded me to overlook internal struggles."

He looked to her now, his dusky pink lips set in a rigid line, and she realized that she had stopped breathing. "How devastated I was when you left me," he murmured. "At the Populaire, and again in Sicily. But I have never begrudged you for it. I owe you everything."

His gaze was so penetrating that her pulse began to race, and she knelt down to stoke the coals of the stove so that she did not have to maintain eye contact. "You are soaked through," she said. "You will catch a chill." Why she thought to say this to a man who had spent much of his life in the sewers, she could not say. "Might I at least offer you a blanket?"

"My only concern is the state of your floor and furniture," he replied. "If you would permit me...I do have a change of clothing." When she glanced up at him, questioning, he added, "I left my bag in the hall. I did not wish to give you the wrong impression."

What impression was that? That he was to stay with her? Of course she should not expect that, she reasoned, even as her spirits sank. "Please," she said. "Whatever it will take to make you feel comfortable."

He offered a curt nod before retrieving his luggage from the hallway, and then he ducked into her small bathroom to change. His modesty seemed laughable on the surface, given their shared history, but then she supposed that they had not seen each other for nearly four months.

When he emerged in dry attire, she had recovered from the shock of his visit and wasted no time in accosting him. "Please tell me that you have brought the final pages."

His eyes gleamed. He reached into his bag and withdrew two sheets of paper, folded into thirds, that he handed to her. She quickly unfolded the pages and smoothed out their creases, and then she crossed the room to set them on the music rack of the piano. "Shall we play, then?" she asked as she withdrew the violin and bow from their case.

He seated himself at the piano without a word. She felt a stab of yearning as his long fingers unfurled to hover over the keys, his pale and bony wrists jutting out from beneath dark tailcoat cuffs. He cast her an unreadable look, and then he filled the whole of her small apartment with his music.

It was more beautiful than she could have imagined. Yet, it was also exactly what she had expected: he had mapped his own essence onto the keys. She heard and felt what must have been decades of unwanted solitude and delicate self-loathing, and as she nearly wept in response, she could scarcely believe that such sadness could come from little more than an assembly of hammers and strings.

Then she cut in with her quiet violin, and there was a flutter of something different in his tune, something youthful and uncertain. What emerged was a sort of call and response, with his instrument coaxing new notes from hers. Her part grew more confident, but it only ever followed his lead—that was, until midway through the duet, when it began to deviate.

The piano part grew louder, more frantic, with the violin holding its own until the piece evolved into that dramatic, uncomfortable dissonance, and both parts circled each other, spinning higher and faster and louder, until they finally crashed to earth: the wake of the storm.

And then her violin sang out on its own, sweet and pure and free. It was her favorite part to play, and she did so now with abandon, closing her eyes against everything but the sound of her instrument and the feel of the strings and bow.

She had figured out his aim, of course, and well before that day: the piece was their shared story, told through music. It was not a difficult conclusion to reach. What she did not know was how it would end. As she played the last of what she had committed to memory, she opened her eyes to find out.

Her violin continued to sing, but the piano came in behind it, underscoring the melody so that it was even more breathtaking. Erik played his part with such sweet deference to hers that she struggled to hold back tears. But his role evolved, until in the last few bars of the song both parts were of equal weight, each the counterpoint to the other. She felt the music pull them closer together until they were interlocked and inseparable, while adrenaline coursed through her veins and propelled her to the song's conclusion, where the final chord reverberated with devout tenderness.

The pair of them stared at each other, motionless, in the moments following. Her breathing was heavy; every nerve ending buzzed with heady exhilaration. She could not read Erik's expression. Did he feel this invigorating pull, too? She did not see how he could not. She let her arms fall to her sides, and she set the violin and bow on a nearby chair before her grip on them gave out.

"Oh, Christine." Erik retracted his hands from the keys. When he pivoted on the bench to face her, his eyes were watering. "It is not your voice that drives my music," he said. "It is you. It has always been you. And not the version of you whom I have twisted to suit my purposes, but the version who acts in her own best interests."

How could he form coherent thoughts at a time like this, let alone words? Her hands still shook.

"Music is in your blood, Christine Daaé, as much as it is mine, and I can think of nothing more consequential than uniting that passion." He swallowed. "I will not dare to ask a second time, only say that if you would ever deign to have me, I—"

"Yes." Her interruption was frantic and breathless, so abrupt that he could only blink in response. "Yes," she repeated, her voice heated with urgency. "I will, Erik, but I do not wish to talk anymore. Not in this moment."

He sucked in one deep, quivering breath, and then he was off the piano bench like a shot. His hand found the back of her head to pull her in, and then they were kissing and she felt like she might explode from the relief and the desire that intermingled, cool against hot, to tumble through her insides.

She grasped at any part of him that she could reach, needing to feel his solidness beneath her palms and to confirm that he was here and real and  _sorry_  and not under threat of death. He seemed to be doing the same; his hands cupped her head and face, raked through her hair, skated down her neck to roam over her shoulders. All the while, their mouths slanted against one another, trading warmth and desperate, all-consuming love.

At last she could give herself to him free of resentment and guilt, free of ulterior motives. It was the after-effect of forgiveness, and it liberated them both. She would no longer use him to drown out her thoughts, because her thoughts of late were only ever of  _him_ and how much more she would enjoy this new life if he were there beside her. She was content by herself, yes, but with him…

With him, she was a goddess.

She smiled against his mouth as she recalled his praise. A deep, animalistic noise rumbled at the base of his throat in response. Without any separation of lips, he swept her into his arms and somehow staggered into her bedroom.

They practically fell onto the bed together, still kissing with abandon. Christine longed to wrap herself around his tall frame, but her skirts interfered.  _Everything_  interfered. She began to tug at her clothing, peeling it away in layers, and Erik was only too willing to assist. When together they reached her corset, he rolled her over with an easy nudge of her hip. "Allow me," he offered.

She practically writhed with desire as he set his hands to the laces. While his fingers—now adept with practice—worked their way down her spine, he leaned in to press his lips to the pulse point on the side of her neck. She emitted a small whimper of satisfaction: the first of its kind, since the return of her voice. She heard his subsequent intake of breath and felt his movements grow even more fervent in response.

He tore at her remaining garments after that, and she yielded in silent approval. They were too numerous, these barriers between flesh. She allowed him to run his hands over her bare curves for only a minute before she set out to remove his clothing. He, too, submitted easily. There would be time for more thorough attentions later; this was little more than an impassioned collision powered by long-suffering need.

The mask came off with the last of his attire. She slung a leg over his side and fused her skin to his as they resumed kissing. With only a few minor adjustments on his part, he had slid into her and rolled her onto her back. She was so delirious with want that she was not even certain whose gasp she heard in the seconds that followed.

She wrapped warm arms and legs around him, clinging with fevered tenacity as he moved. Never before had she felt pleasure so raw and primal, for they were both creatures of intellect, unable to step outside their own heads and just  _be_ —until now. Now they rocked against one another, panting and perspiring, oblivious to everything but the intimate fire forged between them.

It did not take her long to find release; her body had been holding out for it these last four months. Pleasure assailed her in surges sharp and quick. She cried out as her every muscle tensed around him, and the sound sent him over the edge. He stiffened against her on one final drive, and then all was quiet as they caught their breath and trembled from the aftershocks.

They lay side by side afterward, their damp skin converging at various points of contact. Neither could speak. It was enough, however, to simply coexist.

Eventually, Erik got up. She could not be bothered, and so she remained half-conscious and sprawled across the bed, the sheets draped haphazardly across her lower half, until a few minutes later when she felt his weight sink the mattress beside her once more. Something small and lightweight came to rest upon her stomach, and she opened her eyes.

It was a ring box.

With an alarmed glance in his direction, she lifted it and sat up. His face was as stoic as ever, but his eyes danced. "A new story," he said, and she opened the box to find a gold ring with a stunning oval sapphire, nestled in a cluster of tiny diamonds.

She watched as he lifted her left hand to remove the black-stoned ring that had now resided there for months, and something inside of her cried out to lose it. But its presence would forever remind him of that ill-fated production of  _Don Juan Triumphant_ , she knew, and so she let him slip on the new ring in its place. She could come to love this one, too.

He did not repeat any of the sentiments that he had uttered on that stage; he did not need to. After everything that had transpired between them, they had transcended the need for words. Instead he kissed her, and then they lay back against the mattress once more so that he could hold her as well.

They remained in her bed throughout the night and for the better part of the following day, leaving only for the most basic of human needs. There was much to be discussed, and even more to be explored and venerated with insatiable lips and fingers.

"Have you been singing?" he finally asked her.

"A little. Not with any serious intention. I am afraid that I shall never restore my voice to what it used to be."

"Only one way to find out, hmm?"

They finally extracted themselves from the bedroom, she in her dressing-gown and he in trousers and shirtsleeves. He made himself comfortable at the piano and waited patiently as she nursed a glass of water.

Her heart was pounding as she came to stand beside the instrument, but one look into his doting eyes and she knew that it was to be the process, not the outcome, that he was invested in now. "Let us open up and nurture that extraordinary voice of yours, my dear," he said.

He struck a note to indicate the key of her first warm-up, and then he tilted his beautiful, unmasked face up to her and smiled. "Now...sing."


End file.
